


Love Across the Universe?

by JoyVampire



Series: Total Drama vs Dangan Ronpa [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Total Drama, Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race
Genre: Canon Backstory, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Crushes, Dancing Lessons, Dating, Games, Love Confessions, Multi, References to Canon, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-25 03:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 53,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14369508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoyVampire/pseuds/JoyVampire
Summary: It’s junior year at the Neo Hope’s Peak Academy, and it’s no secret that Leon Kuwata has a crush on Sayaka, so when he finally decides he wants to win her over for real, he enlists the help of his bandmates. But even though the TV series might be over, Chris sees an opportunity to create more drama – forcing the teens to date! While one TDAc creator focuses on the happy side, the other is still trying to ensure nobody can learn about the years before arriving in Canada.Will there be any new couples, will any break up, what will become of LeoSaya? And just how long can the 78th Class keep the past hidden?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned at the end of the last story, there will be a story behind this instalment, but there's no guarantee that the writing quality will be any better.  
> To get an idea of the setting, this instalment is set from August 2016-summer 2017. Also, at the beginning, the OC characters are on a vacation. The holiday park they're in is based off is a real place I stayed at a couple of years ago, called Le Bois de Valmarie. The holiday section will only last for like 5 chapters, then go back to Neo Hope's Peak.

Boredom.

With all three of his bandmates off on their “family” holiday, that was the only emotion Leon was feeling right now. Even though it had only been three days since they left.

Every day for the rest of summer was to be the same as always: wake up, cereal for breakfast, solo band practice, frozen meal for lunch, playing video games, cereal for dinner – maybe cup ramen if he was feeling frisky – TV, bed. Sometimes he’d break away from this routine and stop buy his bandmates’ house in the hopes that they’d magically appear on the other end of the door. Unfortunately, the last time he did that today, only Kazuichi was there. Whatever reason, it still wasn’t enough to get him to stay behind. He just went home, played games and then hit the sack earlier (for him).

As if that wasn’t enough, there was something he’d been needing to ask them since the end of the summer festival. And chances were that he wouldn’t be able to let anyone else know about this.

He wanted to do something in order to distract him from these thoughts, but for now, there was nothing. It was too far in Leon’s head to get into the city, and was kind of pointless going alone. And the only things that would be available here were still being built – even then, it was just a supermarket that he knew of so far.

Leon checked the time – 23:52. Honestly, he didn’t care in the slightest whether or not any of his friends were awake on their holiday, he needed to get this off his chest, and fast.

…

Waking up thanks to a phone call, in a caravan, was the last way Ian had expected to get up during this holiday of theirs. Regardless, that’s what he found himself doing this particular morning. At 5:52 in the morning! Still mildly annoyed from the sudden wake-up call, he answered it, loosening up a little upon learning Leon was the caller.

“Morning, Leon. What do you want?”

_“Huh, morning? I’m right about to go to bed! Wait. Oh crap, I forgot the time difference.”_

Ian sighed. “It’s fine. For future reference, we’re six hours ahead of you. Anyway, why did you want to call? It’s almost 6am.”

_“There’s just something I’ve needed to ask you guys since the end of the year.”_

“Hmm, and what would that be?” Ian silently left his shared bedroom in order to prevent waking up Shinjiro.

_“It’s to do with Sayaka. But if I’m keeping you up, I’ll let you get a bit more sleep and tell you later.”_

“No, if you want to--”

_“It’s cool. When it’s eight over here, what’ll it be in France?”_

He paused to do the math in his head. “About 2pm. Call back then if you insist.”

_“Alright, talk tomorrow! Or, later for you. Or--”_

Ian hung up before he could continue. If he got a rant text about it, he’d just blame it on poor signal. He threw his phone on the corner sofa and slumped into it, just as the door to the caravan slid open. Tomoko came in, wearing her purple school tracksuit and taking a few deep breaths.

“Oh, morning Ian. How come you’re awake so early?”

“Leon called. Anyway, thanks to that I doubt I’ll be able to get back to sleep again. And you?”

“It’s part of the intense training I’m starting. There’s a cliff at the end of the street you can go for runs up. And the sunrise from there looks beautiful.”

“Guess I better put the kettle on.” The third voice startled both of them. Stood in her pyjamas, Tess left her large room and stood in the kitchen area. “Is the mini-market open yet?”

“Uh…no.”

“Then I guess it’s cereal until then.” Tess started pulling things out of the cupboards for breakfast, muttering about a lack of food, while Tomoko leaned over to Ian.

“What has happened to her?” She whispered.

“I have no idea. It’s _still_ scary.”

“We should probably ask her about it later.”

 

* * *

 

“And…that’s the _only_ reason why?”

“Yeah! Sorry I was so moody during freshman year.”

Apparently, the huge amount of work she’d been given in freshman and sophomore year, was the cause of her more depressed mood. It was hard to buy, but either way it was a nice change from the old Tess. And fair to say, if Shinjiro was listening in, the discussion would be far from over.

“Meh, I’m still not buying it,” Ian said, as Tess ran towards the clothing area. “It’s quite the change.”

“I know. Maybe it’s something to do with our first year being broadcast on live TV?”

“How would that have any effect on a _YouTube Sensation_?”

“Hey guys,” Shinjiro came back from the opposite end of the store empty-handed, “which one was apples again – _pommes_ , or _pommes de terre_?”

“ _Pommes_ ,” Tomoko replied, “the other word is for potatoes. Literally apples of the earth.”

“Okay. I didn’t need the explanation, but thanks,” Shinjiro sprinted all the way back down to the fruits and vegetables area.

Ian looked over at Tomoko. “Seriously, how are you so good at that? English and Japanese, then Spanish, German and now French?”

“Well, with French, it’s more the words I know, rather than the grammar. It was never my best language. Anyway, what else are we looking for?”

“Enough to last for two weeks, I guess.”

Tess returned on those words. “So…the choux pops at the other end are fair game?”

“Sure. Bring enough for everyone.” Tess ran off at this, leaving Tomoko and Ian alone again. Neither of them knowing what to do, both of them shrugged at one another.

“Meh, they’ll find us again at some point.”

…

“My God, these taste amazing!”

“God, Tess, eyes on the road!”

“If I could drive yet, I’d be doing this.”

“But I thought you could drive already?”

“Yeah…no.”

“This is a rental car, you know! That I paid for!”

Clearly getting sick of Ian’s terrified complaining, Shinjiro leaned over and turned on the radio, some popular English song playing into the car as Tess pulled the car back into the caravan park.

“Anyway, you three can go grab us a table in the bar. I’ll go park the car back outside the caravan, okay?”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

“Just don’t go crashing it.”

The two boys and Tomoko climbed out, Tess driving away while one of the doors was partially open. “Seriously, that woman’s going to get arrested during this holiday.”

“If she doesn’t kill herself in the process.”

“I've said it before, but this new Tess just gets weirder by the minute.”

“The fact that she was just doing some reckless driving is making you say that? More than everything else we’ve seen so far?”

“Well, in his defence, she kind of did that already.”

“But as a whole, on this holiday, I mean. Not only is she nicer and wants to spend more time with us, but remember what happened when we got here?”

* * *

_Come August 19th, the “family” arrived in the South of France. The air con was blasted to full power with Tess in the driver’s seat, Tomoko beside her. Both guys were in the back with the bags._

_Tess pulled the car next to a large building that looked like a bar, hand hovering over the ignition. “Okay, you ready?”_

_"Pff, for what? Sure, the temperature’s a little higher, but it can’t be that bad?”_

_He ate his words as the engine shut off, as did the AC. Within seconds, all four of them were sweating. Shinjiro and Tess had it worst, while Ian and Tomoko, as usual, had the most normal reactions._

_“I’ll go check us in, you three just wait by the car.” Tomoko ran off with her rucksack, leaving Shinjiro and Ian to lean against the car._

_“I don’t think I’ve ever been in this much heat before.”_

_“Meh, LA is similar to this on some days.”_

_"God, I’d kill for a drink right now.”_

_“Sorry, but we can’t get one until our wristbands are on. How about we jump in the pool inst-- oh, right, I forgot.”_

_The two boys were interrupted when they heard a car horn coming from in front of them. In the middle of the road, curled in the foetal position was Tess, causing the approaching car to have suddenly stopped._

_“Well, the kid’s pool would be fine,” Shinjiro said as he pulled Tess back to the side of the road, while Ian waved an apology at the two people in the car. “But I’m not up to swimming in the normal pool just yet. Off topic, does she usually react like this to heat?”_

_“Nope. I can’t think of any reason_ why _she would.”_

* * *

“Talk about an overreaction.”

“Well, it’s pointless worrying about it now. We’ll see where things go after we get back to Hope’s Peak.”

“Good point.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Tomoko struggles to find more about the Tragedy, an attempt to help Shinjiro get over his fear turns into a fight over a sun lounger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the VERY late update, as I struggled to come up with the direction to take. And honestly, the last one is looking a lot better right now. The cameo mentioned last chapter may not be very obvious, but will be next chapter (which won't take more than a month!)  
> BTW - the only part of this chapter I'm truly proud of is in the last section

“Remind me again why we came here in the first place?”

Tomoko had asked that she and Ian both go to the nearest library to where they were staying, mainly because Tomoko still had some investigating to do of her own – she’d found everything she could with what was available in Canada, so it wouldn’t hurt to try in another country, would it? The only problem was hiding the truth from Ian.

_Hopefully he doesn’t understand_ that much _French_.

“I was asked to look into this kind of thing by Kyoko. She said there was something related to it that she’d recently been asked to investigate.” Which wasn’t… _completely_ a lie.

“Well, okay. If _Kyoko_ wanted to know about it, then exactly how dark is it gonna be?”

“No idea,” Tomoko lied, momentarily being unable to shake the thought of the 2,357 Reserve Course students’ mass suicide.

“Wait – what if there’s absolutely nothing in English?”

“Just take a picture and put it into the translator app. As long as _something_ makes it back to Canada.”

“Okay then. I’ll look down here, you look upstairs.”

…

“All this looking, and this is all we can come up with?”

Ian had one thin book, while Tomoko had a full page of notes. An A6 page. Unsurprisingly, nothing in English was available.

“You’d think there would have been a little more if this was an _international_ phenomenon.”

“Well, what now?”

Tomoko just closed her notebook. “I should probably go over this book.”

“And after that, can we just go back? No offence, but this is pretty boring.”

“Screw it,” Tomoko opened the book and pulled out her phone, switching to her camera app. “I’ll translate it when we get back.”

* * *

 

In the meantime, after an awful lot of convincing (which still wasn’t quite enough), Tess was dragging Shinjiro towards the pool area, passing by the park outside their caravan. Right now, there were kids playing on it, differing from yesterday.

“Any idea why Tomoko was using the climbing frame to do pull-ups yesterday?”

“Beats me. I had no idea she’d turned into a combination of Jo and Lightning overnight. Anyway…why the hell are you trying to get me to go to the pool?!”

"For the last time, if you want to get over your fear of water, you have to get in the fricking pool!"

"Okay, it's not a fear of water, but a fear of swimming. Big difference!"

"Really?"

"Well you weren’t quite there when I explained it. And anyway, have you seen how crowded it was on the first day?"

By this point, they had made it up to the foot bath of the pool area. Tess dropped her shoes off and blocked the path back to the caravan until Shinjiro did the same. “That’s not to say it’ll be busy _now_.” She pushed her bag into his arms. “Just find a sunlounger somewhere and then get in the pool when you’re ready, okay?” Before he could reply, Tess put her hair in one long ponytail and walked towards the deeper part of the pool.

Shinjiro just accepted his fate and went to drop their stuff onto a sun lounger...right at the same time as another woman in a pink sun dress.

Both of them stood there for a while, neither one of them moving, until the other person spoke. "Do you mind?"

"Do you? I was here first, you know."

The woman scoffed. "Yeah, right. I saw you just get here, and I've been here for the last five minutes!"

“Then why didn’t you put your stuff down five minutes ago?”

“Just find a different one – this one is _mine_.”

"Funny, I didn't see your name on it."

* * *

 

On the journey back, with Tomoko in the driver’s seat, both teens were in and out of conversation, the radio playing in the background.

“I thought you said the other day that you couldn’t drive?”

“I lied. It was just so I could see how exactly Tess would manage to screw it up.”

As the current song playing on the radio blended into a new one, Ian glanced down at the dashboard with a look of bewilderment.

“How many times have we heard these two songs on the radio since we got here? And I still want to know what they’re called.”

“Too many. The last one was Sofia; this one is called Duele El Corazon. Research them when we have wi-fi.”

“I’ll have to make a mental note of those ones. Even though it’s not like it’s the last time we’ll hear them.”

Turning her full attention back to the road for a moment, Tomoko suddenly remembered another thing she’d been meaning to ask about. “By the way, did you get back in touch with Leon?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Leon just needed some help trying to get the attention of a girl.”

Tomoko very nearly swerved to the opposite side of the road but managed to correct her driving quickly enough. “Wait… _Leon_ wanted _love advice_?! Well, we’re in for a treat when we get back home.”

All of a sudden, Ian’s phone started vibrating in his pocket, answering quite quickly upon seeing the caller ID – Tess.

“Hello? Is everything okay?”

_“I think Shinjiro’s getting himself in a bit of trouble over here…”_

Ian and Tomoko exchanged a look of worry. “How, exactly?”

_“Well, he may or may not have--”_ Tess was cut off by a loud airhorn from her end of the line. “ _Sorry, they do that whenever someone leaves a tip_.”

“What’s he doing?”

_“Just hurry up and get over here and see for yourself. We’re up in the pool area.”_ She immediately hung up.

Once again, they both shared a quick look.

“This is going to be interesting.”

***

Once they’d got up to the pool area, the duo couldn’t see Tess or Shinjiro, let alone any kind of problems. In order to pass the time, they opted to order something from the bar.

“Okay, so let’s get a bowl of fries, a mojito and--”

“About time you got up here!” Tess appeared behind them, hair in a ponytail dripping a little. “You’re needed down in the shallow pool.”

“Is that where the idiot is?” Tomoko sighed. “You stay here and get the food.”

The two girls walked down the steps towards the children’s part of the pool, leaving Ian behind with one other person by the bar.

In the meantime, in the bottom area of the pool, Tomoko was led towards a frog-shaped slide clearly intended for young children.

“Uh, don’t tell me Shinjiro got stuck in that thing?”

“Actually, no…” Tess walked round the back of it, pointing at something Tomoko still couldn’t see.

“This is _actually_ what’s-- KYAH!” She was suddenly knocked into the water by something…or someone, behind the slide. Curious, Tomoko kicked off her socks and shoes and followed after Tess, pausing after seeing it.

“How the…”

***

A loud airhorn sounded from behind the bar as the food arrived in front of Ian.

_Unless I want to lose my hearing, I best not give many more tips._

Ian’s phone then began ringing, being who else but Tomoko. “Alright, so what’s going on down there?”

“ _See for yourself_.”

Now curious himself, instead of taking the same route as the girls, he took off his socks and shoes too, dumping them by their stuff and walking along the edge of the pool. Being careful not to fall in, he looked down to the pool below him, seeing…

“HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?!”

His sudden yell caught the attention of all four people circled around the frog slide, as well as that other person from the bar.

“NO NEED TO YELL, IAN!” Tess replied from down the other end.

“But you’re _both_ being unreasonably loud…”

As it turned out, Shinjiro (still fully clothed) had managed to get into a fight with the woman from before, also still in her sundress…over a goddamn sun lounger. Somehow the fight had moved from words by the entrance, to physical fighting in the kids pool. Needless to say, there were some concerned parents stood beside the pool with their children.

More surprisingly, the lifeguard hadn’t stopped them.

Tess made a few attempts to break them apart, which failed, ending up with her underwater more than a few times. Tomoko had appeared beside Ian in this time.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting this…um…”

Tomoko stopped as she noticed that Ian had pointed his phone at the action, which still hadn't shown any signs of stopping. "What? I'm saving it for his 21st. It'll go nicely with Leon's Valentine's Fail."

"...I think playing JD has changed you completely."

"Say that again when you find explosives in the gym. Also, don’t you think _you_ should be trying to stop them?”

“Ugh…go grab our stuff.” Between this and the lack of information she’d come up with, Tomoko was not in the mood anymore, but regardless, she returned to where the fight was continuing, while Ian took his time scooping their stuff – bag, fries and all – in his arms, turning to the guy next to him.

“I apologise on behalf of those two idiots for what’s going on down there.”

“Okay, we’re going.” Ian turned round to find a soaked Tomoko dragging Shinjiro by the arm behind her, a worried Tess behind them, and the woman, still kind of angry, trailing at the back.

“Let’s move,” the three of them began walking back to the footbath.

“Right, can someone give me a hand with this?”

…

“Great, nobody.” Ian ran off after them, stopping to pick up his shoes as they fell off the top of the pile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend listening to the two songs mentioned in this chapter - if you take anything of enjoyment out of the chapter, then let it be that:  
> Duele El Corazon - Enrique Iglesias  
> Sofia - Alvaro Soler  
> Next time: the group run into two familiar faces, and have mixed opinions towards spending time with them


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a day out, Tess and Ian encounter a familiar face. From two different occasions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ONE MONTH AND ONE DAY AGO - _...but will be next chapter (which won't take more than a month!)_  
>  Well that promise went to shit.  
> Anyway, I'm back with a new username, and should be updating faster, what with end of year exams being over and done with.

As part of the extra training she’d requested help with last year, Tomoko went for jogs every other morning, out the caravan park, down the street and up a cliff. Depending on the time, she could see the sunrise, which made for beautiful photo opportunities. She’d made sure to bring her phone every time in order to take a few.

Once she reached the top of the cliff, she set her rucksack down on the floor, pulling out a bottle of water, her phone, and her notebook. With any luck, she’s still awake, Tomoko thought as she gulped down half her water bottle. She turned on her phone and found Kyoko’s number in her contacts, the detective answering after a few rings.

“ _Fukuhara-san? Is there a problem?_ ”

“Actually, I’ve found out a few extra things for the investigation. It might not be enough, but I promised I’d find something.”

“ _Really?_ ” She heard shuffling down the line. “ _Alright, what did you learn?_ ”

She began to read off her notebook. “Well, around the time you guys came to Canada, there was ‘only’ 40 deaths per month in one area; the movement outside of Hope’s Peak was a ‘non-talent’ movement…and it was pushed further by a group called the SHSL Despair.”

“…”

“Kirigiri-san?”

“ _Still here. This will likely come in useful. I’ll be sure to find something before you return to Canada._ ”

“Alright. See you-- oh, she’s already hung up.”

A little confused, Tomoko stashed her things back into her rucksack, throwing it over her shoulder before heading back down the cliff. The fact that Kyoko hung up so quickly threw her off somewhat, but ended up putting it down to the time in Canada and getting on with things.

Either way, she had a feeling these investigations were only going to get darker from here.

~~~

Come 3pm, the new plans for the day were underway. All four ‘family’ members had boarded one of the local “train-buses”, in order to get into the town, which unfortunately, was the final stop from the caravan park.

“Tess must be excited,” Shinjiro pointed over at her, “an entire evening spent shopping. Must be her idea of heaven!”

“Ha, ha,” she just rolled her eyes and reached for her phone out of her bag. “So what exactly are the plans? Are there _any_ plans?”

“Not really, I guess just wander around until we find somewhere we want to go.”

“Fair enough.” The train-bus pulled up outside one shop called Lily’s, selling only sweet things by the looks of it – ice cream, slushies, churros, and so on. Unsurprisingly, Tess grabbed all three of the others and dragged them towards it.

“Ooh! Check out how many flavours they’ve got! There’s, uh…coconut, white chocolate, Oreo and…what the heck is a Smurf-flavour?!”

While she attempted to get her head around that one, Tomoko spotted Shinjiro writing something on his phone. “Messaging someone back home?” Glancing at his screen, she saw a number of bullet points he’d typed out:

\- extreme sweet tooth  
\- use of the word “heck” at any given opportunity

“Uh, what?”

“I still have a feeling that something’s wrong about her. One minute she’s the one we know and don’t love from freshman year…”

“HEY!” “…the next she’s like Lindsay’s black-haired, smarter counterpart.”

“Shinjiro, I think you’re developing an unhealthy obsession with this. Maybe it’s all the anime messing with your head. She’s still the popular, sane YouTube Sensation we remember from before.”

“Hey guys!” Tess called from the glass display in a high-pitched, excited tone. “I’m gonna try the Smurf one!”

“…or, maybe not.”

~~~

For the next couple of hours, the four of them just wandered aimlessly, stopping off in the odd shop here and there. Aside from a shoe store, arcade, jewellers, and toy shop, all they had appeared to be stores that sold knock-off goods. Okay, not all of them – there was still the fair share of proper ones – but it appeared to be the majority.

Everyone had bought at least one thing at some point, so they thought it was about time they found a place to eat. Most of the best ones were at full capacity, and then there was the menu options to factor in, resulting in only a few options remaining. So while Tomoko and Shinjiro wandered off elsewhere, Tess and Ian were in charge of picking the restaurant.

“Any preferences?”

“Well, I can’t really read any of the menus, so I guess we just pick whichever one looks the nicest.” Ian pulled out his phone, searching the Internet for a nearby restaurant. “It looks like there’s one near the beach, just round the corner – _Le P’tit Bateau_.”

“The Small Boat.” Tess looked at the screen. “Looks like a small restaurant. I’ll go see if I can book us in.”

“But you can’t even--” Tess was gone before he could finish. Ian sighed, having a feeling she’d be unable to communicate well with the staff members. Not to mention it looked busy from where he was stood. A few seconds passed before Tess motioned for him to come over.

“There aren’t any available tables for four, but there’s a table with only two people on it that we can join.”

“Let’s hope they’re not horrible people.” Making their way to the table, Ian sent the other two a message as he bumped into Tess.

“Well, I _think_ you’re going to be disappointed…” She pointed to the person at the table. A black-haired woman in pink clothing. “That’s one half of the Ice Dancers team from the Ridonculous Race, Josee and Jacques.”

 _So_ that’s _who Tomoko told me about last year, Ian thought._

“So? How’s that a bad thing?”

“Just act like you haven’t seen the show, otherwise she may just break a table.” Ian just smiled nervously as Tess approached the table. “Hi, uh, mind if we sit here? There aren’t any other seats.”

“No problem,” Josee moved a few bags off the seat next to her, Tess sliding into it. Ian sat opposite her, reaching for a menu and noticing a jacket on the seat next to him.

“Hey, aren’t you one of those Ice Dancers from the Ridonculous Race?”

“I had a feeling I’d be recognised sooner or later.” Although she was smiling as she said this, Ian couldn’t help but notice the slightly negative tone to her voice. Granted, they _were_ the antagonists of the series. “Yes, that’s me. For the record, I am--”

“Don’t bother - I never really saw the show, I just knew of you guys before the season started.”

“Ah. Well, never mind.”

“I thought you had a partner,” Ian said, still hopelessly reading the menu.

“Oh, Jacques? He just had to use the bathroom.”

“Fair enough.” Ian still couldn’t make any sense of the menu in front of him. “Know if there are any English menus around here?”

“Over there,” Josee pointed to the middle of the restaurant. As Ian got up to grab one, the two women returned to the conversation. “You never introduced yourselves, by the way.”

“Oh, right! My name’s Tess, and I’m a vlogger. That guy’s my brother Ian, a songwriter.”

“Really? Anything popular?”

“Well, Ian has this _one_ song that was a big hit for a while, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. And I have quite a popular account – I haven’t been on it for a while though, what with school work and sponsorships.”

“Tess? Okay, I’ll have to remember that.”

“Please do. Anyway, I’m probably going to regret asking,” Tess started playing with her hair a little, “but how exactly have things been since the end of the Race? Apparently, you said you were going to try and be a nicer person.”

“Believe it or not, that’s actually been working out quite well. Jacques and I have also been slowly rebuilding our reputation as figure skaters.”

“Huh. I did not expect that from what I heard--” “Well, aside from one incident the other day.”

“How come? What happened?” Ian asked, appearing back at the table with an English menu.

“Let’s just say I got into a fight with someone where we were staying, after they tried to use the sunlounger we had.”

 _Crap_. Exchanging a quick look, Ian and Tess grinned anxiously, fearful for what would happen when Tomoko and Shinjiro arrived.

And on that note…

“Hey guys. So, what kind of people do we have to--” Shinjiro dropped his bags on the floor after one glance at the table.

He and Josee made eye contact.

“ ** _You_**.”

 

* * *

 

Staring down at the information she’d copied down, Kyoko sighed. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the exchange with Tomoko for a while. Even when Makoto walked into the room asking if everything was alright, she’d just shook it off and assured him there wasn’t any problem.

Although there was very much a problem.

_It’s too early for her to find out about the 77th Class…this might not go well when she returns._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgotten what everyone's talent is? Want to know more about the four newbies? Curious about Ian's song? Then be sure to refer to _TDDR - Behind The Scenes_ , a work containing all kinds of bonus stuff which tie into all instalments of the series, from character profiles to author's notes.  
> Next time: the cameo is better.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon returning to Canada, the four newbies find a new place open, as well as another former Hope's Peak student.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to stop making update promises since I'll never meet them.  
> This was going to be another holiday chapter, but I just couldn't work out what to put into it, hence the long delay (again). Once I've thought of something, I'll post it on the behind-the-scenes work. Long story short, something involving the four OCs and the Ice Dancers.

Back in Canada, about a week later, everybody had returned to the Neo Hope’s Peak for junior year. Anyone else who’d been on vacation returned early, but Tess had insisted on extending it for a few days. The reason for that not being made clear. And despite the fact that his bandmates were probably skipping out on school after their holiday, Leon still waited outside the school gates, on the off chance that they’d miraculously appear in order to help him with the problems he had with…the love advice.

On that note…

“Morning, Kuwata-kun.”

“Wha--! Oh, Maizono-chan!” Leon straightened out his uniform (which wasn’t even messed up to begin with), going the slightest bit red. “Morning!”

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“Huh? Oh, y-yeah. Ian and the others haven’t shown up yet."

Sayaka laughed. “You remember they’re on vacation, right?”

“R-right, duh! I was just, uh, testing you.” He cleared his throat. “Actually, I think they come back today.”

Another smaller laugh. “Then maybe they’ll be back later in the day. Anyway, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, later Maizono-chan!”

Leon watched as Sayaka walked off towards the entrance hall, waiting until she was out of sight before yelling to the heavens:

“WHERE THE HELL ARE THOSE GUYS WHEN I NEED THEM?!”

 

* * *

 

Turns out they _had_ decided to take the morning off of school. Aside from Leon’s need for romantic counselling and Shinjiro’s slight tan becoming more visible, nothing had changed between leaving for the holiday and returning today. At least, that’s what they thought. The school was the same, no new students, but there were more buildings in the town.

“Maybe we should take a detour from school to check it out?”

“Meh, why not. Blame it on jetlag if anyone has a problem.”

The street which already had Ruruka’s shop in it hadn’t really changed at all, but at the end of it was an incredibly large and modern building called “Rocketpunch Market” – clearly a supermarket.

“Huh. At least we have a closer place to buy food now.”

“Who exactly is going to be working there? Chef?”

“Doubtful.”

As it turned out, Ian was right. Instead, running the shop was two people they’d never seen before – a large man with a big smile on his face, and a friendly looking woman, shorter but roughly the same age. From the man’s clothing, it looked like he was a farmer or something like that.

“Welcome to Rocketpunch Market! How can I help?” And his voice was unrealistically high-pitched for his body type. Was there anything else to add to his character?

“We’re just looking for now,” Ian replied, as Shinjiro called from another part of the store. Crowding round, the others saw he was holding the world’s largest bottle of cola. None of them knew how to react to it, until Shinjiro spoke up.

“I want it.”

“That can’t be healthy…”

“It’s only unhealthy if you drink it all at once.” Shinjiro grabbed another and (with the help of Tomoko) carried them both up to the counter. As the woman scanned them through, the man glanced at their uniforms.

“Could it be…are you students at the Neo Hope’s Peak Academy?”

“That’s right. Did you attend the original one?”

“Yep! I’m Daisaku Bandai, former SHSL Farmer!”

_Knew it._

Tess and Ian picked the two bottles back up after paying for them. “I still don’t think this is a good idea. They’ll take up too much fridge space.”

“Well you know what they say,” Daisaku said, “you can’t judge the size of the dormouse by its fur.”

All four of them stood in a confused silence, unsure of how to respond to this…random saying that literally _nobody_ says. Eventually, they just nervously smiled and left the shop.

“Well, at least now shopping trips will be interesting.”

 

* * *

 

As soon as Tomoko set foot into the entrance hall, the bell for the end of lunch went off. She’d left the other three further behind, since they didn’t have a Kiyotaka in their class to worry about. By chance, Kitty was outside her locker grabbing a book. Turning round, she saw Tomoko running towards her. “Hey Tomoko! How was the vacation?”

“Great. It was nice to spend more time with Tess after one year.”

“Meet anyone else there?”

She opened her mouth to reply, before thinking back on what exactly happened.

_Josee and Shinjiro fighting in a kiddie pool…the three guys doing karaoke together…and not actually getting triggered at the mention of losing the Race._

_No way_ would Kitty believe her if she said the Ice Dancers were better people.

“Nope. I guess we were out too much.” The two girls started walking towards their classroom. “Off topic, what kind of stuff have I missed?”

“Uh…the USA won the Olympics, the pool went green, and the guy who played Willy Wonka in the 70s died.”

“Jeez, it never ends.”

“And Leon’s been asking for--”

“Yeah, we already know about that.”

“My ‘Love Alarm’ has been going off a lot more than usual whenever he’s around Sayaka.”

On the walk up to their classroom, Tomoko noticed a few differences with some of the students, particularly in the 78th Class. Toko’s hair was down instead of in its usual plaits, Hina now had a regular ponytail rather than the vertical one, and Kyoko had a long ponytail now. The three girls were stood with three of their male classmates, Hina waving at Tomoko and Kitty as they walked past.

“Hello? You still listening?”

“Hm? Oh, my bad. Something to do with Leon and Sayaka?”

“Be sure to tell me the gossip when you find out, okay?”

“Sure, why not? Oh, by the way,” her thoughts suddenly drifted to the supermarket from this morning, “have you been to that new supermarket yet?”

“I didn’t think it was open yet. Why? What kind of stuff do they sell there?”

***

“Dude, you actually _bought_ the cola bottles?”

With Duncan finally starting to make the most of class not being obligatory, he was in school a lot less often. Today happened to be one of those days, so Shinjiro – with nowhere else to put them – left the large cola bottles on his desk.

“Don’t ask. I was still in holiday mode.” He screwed the lid off the one closest to him. “Want some?”

Before he could serve any though, there was a loud knock on the classroom door. As it opened, Leon was stood in the doorway, one hand gripping Ian’s wrist quite harshly.

“Yo, Kizakura. Mind if I borrow Shinji for a moment?”

“Sure, go ahead,” their drunk teacher slurred. In an instant, Leon’s other hand was pulling Shinjiro out of the classroom, both cola bottles being abandoned. The pitcher didn’t let go until they’d made it to the storage room by the student dorms. Leaving the door open, he shoved both boys inside before running back the way they’d just came.

“Ian, do you think if we run now, we’ll make it back to class safely?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No update promises, but the next one will have more effort put into it.  
> Next time: Tess sees all her friends again, and Leon explains exactly what he needed for the past two weeks


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon's plan is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so I'm finally back on track with the writing, and I have every chapter planned out. So if not once a week, chapter should be released far faster. Also, the Student Council titles are what I think their titles are likely to be (except Soshun and Karen).

Leon had still been able to hear Kiyotaka’s yells of protest even after having rounded a corner, and it reminded him how relieved he was deep down that he hadn’t been put in the same class as _all_ of the 78th Class. Regardless, Tomoko had been brought to the storage closet in the same manner as the other two boys, which would have looked very wrong out of context.

“Whatever you want to talk about in the middle of class, why can’t we do it in your dorm room?”

“When else am I going to get a chance to tell you what I needed you guys for?!”

“…uh, _after_ school?”

“Whatever! I’ve waited for two weeks – I don’t plan on waiting any longer!”

“Let me guess: it involves either your music career, or Sayaka.”

Leon’s eyes widened. “How’d you figure it out?”

“It’s kind of obvious.” Shinjiro rolled his eyes. “But what _exactly_ do you want?”

“Uh, well…” Leon paused to scratch the back of his head. “That’s kinda…”

“Don’t go embarrassed on us now,” Tomoko said. “Ishimaru-kun’s likely to be patrolling the halls trying to find us, so make it quick.”

“I wanna go out with her.”

The other three were silent. “Well duh.”

“But the reason I needed you guys to help was because I want her to…notice me.”

Looks were exchanged among the others. “Uh, last time I checked, you were friends.” “Yeah, sure, we’re friends. But I don’t think she’s ever acknowledged me as the kind of person who’d be a good boyfriend.”

“In all honesty, I don’t see it either.” The three guys looked over at Tomoko. “What? May as well say it now.” She just looked to Leon. “So what? You want advice on the kind of things Sayaka likes?”

“Sort of. Not just that, but I wanna know how to win her heart. I mean, she’s a popular idol – no way would I get anywhere the way I’d normally do it! So I wanna do it in a way that will make her take me seriously; no awkward flirting, no pick-up lines, and toning back the punk-rock thing. You get me?”

“Yeah, but why us?” Shinjiro asked. “Why not ask someone who’s been in a relationship?”

“Ian told me he’s had loads of girls interested in him at his last school!”

“True, but I’ve never been in a relationship. Why not talk to some of the Total Drama guys? Have you seen how many of them have been in relationships?” He offered.

“Sure, because all of those ended in perfection,” Tomoko remarked.

“I’m coming to you guys, because I know you three can be trusted with this.”

“I think I’ve come up with an idea,” Shinjiro said. “Meet us after school at our house, and I’ll have something ready.”

“You have something already?! Nice!”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fantastic. Can I get back to class before Ishimaru-kun finds us?”

…

Tomoko had to leave Ian and Shinjiro to start research for Leon by themselves, what with Kyoko wanting her in for more investigations this year. As usual, it took some time for her to get away from her class. The only thing she had on her was something from her teaching, Tomoko noticing something immediately.

“What? No tea this year?”

“I didn’t have enough time to make any.” Kyoko didn’t make any move to sit down. “Either way, we don’t really need to discuss anything tonight. I just wanted to give some updates, using the information you gave me.”

“Alright.”

“I had a look into this…SHSL Despair group you told me about. When this ‘non-talent’ movement began, there were hundreds of supporters across the country. It more than likely started within the walls of Hope’s Peak Academy, and around about the time it was recorded to have started, some of the Main Course students went missing.” Kyoko dropped a sheet of paper onto the table, which Tomoko looked over. There were fourteen names and titles, but nothing else:

_Soshun Murasame – SHSL Student Council President_   
_Kotomi Ikuta – SHSL Public Speaker_   
_Karen Kisaragi – SHSL Secretary_   
_Asukasei Hino – SHSL Journalist_   
_Suzuko Kashiki – SHSL Competitive Dancer_   
_Sosuke Ichino – SHSL Roller Blader_   
_Tsubasa Kamii – SHSL Poet_   
_Taro Kurosaki – SHSL Actor_   
_Kiriko Nishizawa – SHSL Hair Stylist_   
_Shoji Yoko – SHSL Barista_   
_Daiki Kubo – SHSL Babysitter_   
_Tomohiko Goryoku – SHSL Personal Trainer_   
_Aiko Umesawa – SHSL Clothing Designer_   
_Ryota Someya – SHSL Collector_

“If something happened, it likely didn’t reach the press due to the chaos from outside the academy.”

“These are…the Student Council?”

“Yes. I’ll be sure to have a look into them for the next time.”

“Okay, and I’ll try to--”

“No.” Kyoko was firm with her voice. “Leave this one to me. There are very few leads from what I’ve seen so far, so it’s best left to a professional.”

“Right,” Tomoko moved to the door, “I understand.”

“Besides, don’t you already have some other work to be getting on with?”

She stopped dead in her tracks. _How the hell did she figure_ that _out?!_

 

* * *

 

Walking through the door to her house, she had no idea what to expect from Shinjiro. _No doubt something relating to anime_. Entering the living room, said nerd was rummaging through a cupboard, while Ian and Leon were sat on the sofa. All three of their bags were dumped in the doorway, which nearly tripped up Tomoko.

“So, what were these ideas?”

“One moment,” Shinjiro said. “I just need to find the last thing…ah, here we go.” He closed the cupboard, revealing a stack of DVDs, with a sheet of paper resting on top. None of the other three had a clue what the link between all these DVDs was.

“So,” Ian began, “anyone want to explain the link between all these?”

“A recurring trope that exists between couples is dancing as a couple. Whether it be as friends, and the couple take that moment to realise they love the other person. Or should they both _conveniently_ end up together for the slow dance. And it’s fair to say, Leon Kuwata, that you don’t possess that kind of dance capacity.”

“And you do?” He muttered.

“But I have a number of sources to help with that.” Shinjiro dropped the pile of DVDs in front of Leon, causing the top boxes and the paper to fall off. “Every Just Dance game, Fairy Tail episode #125, RWBY S2 episode 7, and five DVDs by a Mr. Andre Rieu.”

“Why do you have DVDs of a classical musician?”

“I found them in Ian’s part of the cupboard.”

“What? Don’t give him my DVDs without asking!”

“Anyway, watch and play what’s on these, and you should pick up a few things about _real_ dancing. Not to mention there’s a show I think you ought to watch. That’s lesson one. Lesson two, try and figure out what she likes. If you can do that, chances are you can find something she’d like. You know, Christmas, her birthday, White Day if it comes down to it.”

“Sure, that makes sense.”

“One more thing,” Tomoko said. “Is this going to stay just between us? What if word reaches Maizono-san herself?”

“Until we get it off the ground, I think we should keep it secret,” Ian was inclined to agree with her.”

“Good point. I don’t wanna be the laughing stock of Maizono-chan’s friends before I even get a chance to impress her!”

“Well, I guess that’s about it.” Shinjiro picked up all the DVDs again and wedged them all best as possible inside Leon’s bag. “I expect both those discs back the way you got them.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” As he picked up his bag, he remembered something from the summer. “Oh, right. While you guys were away, I saw Souda going into your house a few times. Any ideas on that or should I call the cops?”

“That? He was just making some adjustments to our TV box. Which links in to what I said before. I expect you here on 23rd September at around 1pm.”

“Uh…right. Well, thanks for all that. I’ll see you guys later.” As the door closed, Tomoko turned to her brother. “So, got any other ideas?”

“Uh, well…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Chris launches a new idea to help the kids bond


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris' new plan is announced for the students, and Tomoko's friends are concerned for her "love life".

Week after week went by, and none of the group have any real idea _how_ Leon would go about winning over Sayaka. Tomoko had wanted to say it at the time, but had kept it to herself for whatever reason – Sayaka already somewhat likes Leon the way he is as a friend, so why should he need to change?

Then she remembered this was Leon Kuwata, the player of his old high school, that she was dealing with.

With no ways to do anything, outside of the options Shinjiro had come up with, not to mention trying to keep it a secret, the four of them had been on square one for the whole month of September. Until Chris called everyone into the gym one day at the start of October.

Unlike with any of Chris’ previous announcements where the staff members were either concerned or irritated, all of them appeared to have relatively normal expressions, which sort of appeased the students.

“As you’ll all probably remember,” he started, “last year’s school festival was a huge success, and has resulted in not only excessive funds for the Neo Hope’s Peak Academy, but also some good relationships with the OG Hope’s Peak and its students. However, due to the sheer amount of effort that took, there won’t be another one this year.”

A few people groaned at this, until Chris continued.

“But, I’ve come up with an idea that all the staff members, along with the Student Council, have agreed to launch. And they involve…these!” Out of his pocket, Chris revealed a rainbow coloured piece of card (or something similar) with a white stripe along the end. “From now on, for the rest of this school year, you will be able to take other students out of classes on dates. Not only are these a chance to offer you more diligent students with a break, but also to allow you to further bond with your classmates. For now, it’s only possible to take out one person at a time, and you have to stay on school grounds, but should it be popular enough, this will change.”

People started talking among each other excitedly, before Chris brought everyone’s attention back to the paper in his hand.

“These things are called Date Tickets. If you want to take someone on a date, you must have one of these. Sold at a very affordable price from the school shop – only three bucks! And on that note, the school shop has had some changes to it over the summer. Now, it’s being run by our very own fortune teller Yasuhiro Hagakure, and you will find a couple of vending machines as well as a Japanese-style ga…cha…pon – is that what it’s called?” Makoto nodded behind him. “…gachapon machine. One of the machines has some food and drink items in them, but everywhere else, you’ll find small presents you can give to your date, if you _really_ want to bond with them. Bigger ones can be found at the supermarket not far from here.

“In due time, you’ll discover more about this new feature of your high school lives. So with that, I bid you all happy dating!”

The moment people started filing out of the gym, Tomoko and Shinjiro ran after Ian and Leon, making sure Sayaka was far away. “This is the perfect opportunity! Just get Leon a few Date Tickets, some presents, take her out a few times…”

“Are we absolutely certain there aren’t any more CCTV cameras that lead right to Chris? Why else would he have started this?”

***

In response to the announcement, Tomoko was one of the many people who went to the school shop in order to check out what kinds of presents they had on offer. Honestly, she had no idea what exactly to expect would be on offer at a _high school._

The concept of the vending machines began to remind her of arcades – trading real money for tokens to use on the machines, only here people got bronze-ish coins with Chris’ face on them, aptly named Chris Coins. One dollar would get someone five Chris Coins, which can be used in every machine in the school shop.

After getting a water for herself, she took four turns on the smaller gachapon machine, emptying four small capsules out of it. Tomoko put all but one into her school bag and pushed past everyone else to head back to homeroom, when she bumped into someone in the doorway. The impact caused her to drop the capsule in her hand.

“Oh, sorry Fukuhara-kun!” Kiyotaka bent over and picked up the capsule before Tomoko could.

“It’s fine,” she took the capsule. “Thanks. I didn’t expect you’d be interested in this new idea.”

“Not exactly. Yes, it is beneficial to form strong bonds with your classmates, but I’m not fond of the idea that we must sacrifice vital study time to do so!”

_Only you, Ishimaru-kun._

“Actually, I was looking for some school supplies.”

“What? Run out already?”

“Oh, not for me! I’ve begun a tutoring job!”

“Really? That’s great! At least you _have_ a job now.” Both of them looked at the school store. “But so far I haven’t found anything like that in there. I’d probably wait until less people are here to see for yourself.”

“I see. Maybe when the day is over.”

“But why buy resources from here? Don’t the organisation provide any?”

“Actually, I do my job independently. Not to mention it’s only with one person.”

“Oh.” That surprised Tomoko significantly. “You’re only tutoring one person, and not with some organisation?”

“That’s right. She’s only slightly older than us but needs to re-take some of her previous exams.”

“Right. Well, you’re definitely the person for the job!”

…

Kitty, however…wasn’t so approving when she found out.

“An older woman?! And _only_ her?! Why didn’t you say anything to him?!”

“Uh… _should_ I have said something?”

“Yes! You know how it goes – guy tutors girl, girl falls for guy, guy returns the feelings, COUPLE!”

Most heads in the class were turned to the two girls (thankfully, not Kiyotaka’s) on the word ‘couple’, before Tomoko clocked in on what she was implying.

“I get it now. And before you say any more, I **_don’t_ ** have a crush on him. I told you that last year!”

“But you guys would look so cute together!”

“Ibuki agrees!” Joining the conversation after longer than the two girls expected, Ibuki grinned.

“Why do I even bother sometimes?” Tomoko muttered. “And anyway, this is Kiyotaka Ishimaru we’re talking about – too busy with school and restoring his family’s reputation to think of relationships.”

“I…guess that’s a fair point,” Kitty relented. “Okay, fine, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about this whole tutoring thing! And I’m telling you now – if he does end up using a Date Ticket with you, I won’t let you deny it.”

“Whatever.” The bell for the end of class sounded, the girls’ classmates all collecting their bags. “Maybe your talent should be SHSL Shipper.” Bag over her shoulder, she left the classroom before either of her friends could follow her.

“Hmm, that title makes more sense than SHSL Selfie. I might just go to Mr. Naegi to get that changed!”

“I was being sar-- ugh, never mind. See you later.”

Suddenly, while walking towards the stairs, she spotted Tess walking towards her. A bit out of nowhere, since her classroom was _downstairs_.

“There you are! That took less time than I thought.”

“Tess? What do you want?”

“Nothing, just come with me for a moment.” She grabbed her hand and pulled her into the nearest girls’ bathroom, making sure nobody else was there. “I heard about Leon wanting to try and get together with Sayaka.”

“Wait, who told you?”

“Um, we live in the same house?”

“Oh yeah, I’m still getting used to that.”

“Anyway, if you wanted me to, I thought maybe I could help you guys. Find out a few of Sayaka’s preferences, maybe talk to the other girls. I-it’s the least I can do to make things up to you three.”

“Woah, really? You’d do that?”

“No more work left to worry about, no more problems,” she smiled, pausing to glance in the mirror behind Tomoko and adjust her hair a little.

“Well…sure. But promise you’ll keep it on the down-low for now – Leon doesn’t want anyone to know outside of the band.”

“Can do! Thanks!” As quickly as they’d gone in, Tess ran out, presumably back towards her classroom.

“Well what’s gotten _her_ so happy?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first Date Ticket event happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so...I go onto YT this morning only to discover that Total Drama has ended officially...which sucks. I really wanted to see a proper send-off to all the characters before they chose to finish the series...ugh. Regardless, I'm still going to continue with this fic, no matter how many people even read it, and no matter how terrible it might end up. There's still one more after this one I have planned which I will definitely get to.

For nearly the rest of the month, nobody had even considered using the Date Tickets, meaning Hagakure had many a boring day at work. Every day, people would stop off and look like they were going to buy something but ended up changing their mind suddenly. Whenever it was Total Drama contestants, they’d mutter that Chris had more ulterior motives and walk off.

On one morning, Hagakure had come in early once again, on the off chance somebody would show up. The only person, however, was one of his own former classmates.

“Ah, Kirigiri-chi! Why in such a hurry? Classes don’t start for a few more minutes.”

“There’s something important that needs to go to my classroom,” Kyoko showed him a folder marked confidential, “and I need to ensure nobody sees it.”

“Yeah, sure. Be sure to remind your students that _this_ exists!” He gestured wildly, indicating the entire school shop. Despite the over-exaggeration, Kyoko didn’t seem to take any notice, instead continuing to hurry over to her classroom, once more leaving Hagakure in solitude. Until another one of his former classmates arrived, bright and cheery.

“Good morning, Hagakure-kun!”

“Maizono-chi! Mornin’!”

“Have you had much business in here?”

“Nah, everyone probably thinks it’s some kinda joke. After a month, the tickets have made…zero dollars.”

Sayaka laughed. “Then how about I be your first customer?” And the clairvoyant’s face lit up when the idol pushed three dollars onto the counter.

***

“Morning everyone!” Rather than the usual greeting in return from her fellow classmates, most of the females were crowded round Tess’ desk. “What’s going on?”

“We think Tess here has a secret admirer,” Junko winked at Sayaka.

“How come?”

“Somebody left a present on her desk this morning,” Mahiru said.

“Unless it’s her birthday today?”

“No, it isn’t until summertime. We've already established that.”

“You think someone might want to ask you out on a date soon?”

“Speaking of which,” Sayaka revealed the Date Ticket to the other girls. “How would you like to come to the library with me today?”

“Huh? Why?”

“After the last year, I just want to have some time to catch up on what’s been happening.”

“Well you better let the rest of us know whether or not it’s a joke after you’re done,” Hiyoko groaned.

Tess dropped the still-wrapped present into her bag and stood up. “Sure, why not? Be sure to let Togami-san know where we are.”

***

The two girls had no idea how long they were going to be in the library together, since they had the bare minimum number of tips to go off – they were the first pair to use one of the Tickets, and no rules aside from the “two students per date” rule had been set. Even so, the girls were sat at a table in the middle of the library, nobody else around.

“So…what exactly did you want to catch up on?”

“I don’t know,” Sayaka thought for a moment. “I guess, what were you up to for the last year? Being a ‘YouTube Sensation’, what exactly would mean you have to leave for a year?”

Tess considered what the easiest way to explain it would be. “You know how our first year here was sort of, well, a joke? My agent wasn’t that happy with all that, so had me transferred to a different high school closer to my home. Mainly so I could keep up with work too.”

“So are you one of those people who makes a living off their channel?”

“Not really.” She sighed, looking down at her lap. “It isn’t something Ian or I ever really talked about with people, but our family had a few problems with money a few years ago. Being the older one, I needed to get some kind of job to help bring in more money, but there weren’t really many going around for people my age. I’d been making comedy videos for a while in my free time, so I put them online. Eventually, they caught the attention of a big group of creators who let me join them. And that’s where I got my talent from.”

“I…see. But what does that have to do with the year off?”

“Because of the job, I missed a lot of classes in high school. My parents were surprisingly cool about it, but my agent was oddly enough, the one concerned about my education. And what with the lack of any real direction during our freshman year, I had to move back to LA for a year to catch up. I don’t do it as much anymore since the problems have been near enough resolved, but I still wish I could.”

Sayaka didn’t say anything for a few seconds after she’d finished. “I had no idea that was what things were like before you came here. I guess our stories have their similarities.”

“Hm? How so?”

“My mother died when I was young, meaning I lived with my father. He worked long hours, meaning I was alone most of the time. The only things I had that stopped me from feeling lonely were live idol shows. Watching them perform was a source of strength for me, which inspired me to be the same as them, which is why I’m here today.”

“Okay, but…what does that have to do with my past?”

Sayaka gave her a small smile. “Our families affected our choices which got us to where we are. Your parents had financial problems, my father was hardly ever around.”

“I guess that’s true,” Tess also smiled.

“But I didn’t invite you out here to talk about depressing things, I wanted to find out more about you!”

“Oh, right! And…” _Of course, this is perfect! I can finally learn more about Maizono-san! Not just for my sake…_

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh, not at all! I was just wondering…”

…

“You’d have thought those two would be back by now.”

“It’s almost lunch and they left first thing this morning!”

“I guess those Date Ticket things are the real deal, huh?”

 

* * *

 

Even though the two girls had returned to class after lunch, they’d decided to follow through with what Chris had said at the start of the month – more presents sold at the new supermarket. Following the cheerful greeting from the quirky shopkeeper, they looked at the new designated section right at the far back.

“They have lots more food here than at the school,” Sayaka pulled a few things off one of the shelves. “Freeze-dried cake, _sukiyaki_ caramels, coconut pulp that tastes likes sashimi?”

“Check out all the clothes and games they have!” Tess pulled a _jinbei_ off a rack, which had a black and white design. “Don’t these seem a little much to give to someone on a date?”

Sayaka happened to notice a game in a box near the bottom of another shelf. “Dangan Werewolf? Looks like a fun game. Maybe we should take it to the party next week.”

“What party?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear? The Imposter’s having a Halloween party soon. Mainly because of Mioda-san.”

Tess scratched the back of her head. “Well I’m offended that I wasn’t invited.”

“Nobody was invited. If you want to show up on the night, then you can. As long as you bring food, according to Mioda-san.” She picked up the Werewolf game. “Anyway, I’m just going to quickly pay for this.”

“Go for it.” While Sayaka’s back was turned, Tess pulled a small notepad out of her bag, scribbling down as much as she could from her long conversation with Sayaka. She’d gotten some of it down during class time, but there was still a lot to get through. It was a good thing she had a larger memory than people gave her credit for.

_Before we know it, Operation LeoSaya will be a success!_ She immediately stashed it away as Sayaka finished up. Now maybe this party would be a good place to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few of the cast attend the SHSL Imposter's Halloween party.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few of the Neo Hope's Peak student body attend a Halloween party, hosted by Ibuki and the SHSL Imposter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this is a two part chapter, the next one should be out soon.
> 
> Ibuki + Tomoko’s characters - http://rwby.wikia.com/wiki/File:V2_09_00006.png  
> Shinjiro’s character - http://rwby.wikia.com/wiki/File:Adam_fullscreen.png   
> Ian’s character - https://www.detectiveconanworld.com/wiki/File:Kid_MK1412.jpg   
> *Izzy’s costume is because of World Tour episode 2, while Beth’s comes from Total Dramarama

As soon as school was over, Tess headed straight for her room, stashing away her uniform and retrieving the costume she’d bought off Tsumugi, she thinks. She’d heard people talk about her and some of her other classmates who’d helped out during the festival. Apparently, she was a cosplayer who preferred seeing other people wear the cosplays she made, so when the Halloween party information was spread to other students, some people began looking on her website for outfits.

Putting on wigs was something she really didn’t like doing, what with all the effort required, but she’d insisted she do it to get into character – Tsumugi did that a lot apparently.

“Tess! Are you nearly done?”

“We said we’d get there early to drop off the drinks!”

“One moment! This wig’s tougher than it looks!”

“Need a hand?”

“Nope, I’ve got it covered!” A couple of minutes later, Tess eventually opened the door, revealing the most surprising outfit ever. One that none of her ‘family’ were expecting to see her in.

“Are…you supposed to be…”

“What? I thought it’s kind of obvious.”

“You? Going to a party as _Hatsune Miku_? What’s next? Heather in a Pikachu costume?”

“I like the songs people have made with her program! Besides, you’re not one to talk.”

The other three were all in similarly themed costumes – two at Shinjiro’s request, one at Ibuki’s. Ian had been convinced to go wearing a Kaito KID costume, while Tomoko had been given a Lie Ren (RWBY) outfit, which she was certain was handmade. As for Shinjiro, he’d put together a makeshift Adam Taurus costume, also from RWBY.

“It makes more sense for us,” Ian said, adjusting his white top hat, “given the fact that our friends are delusional.”

“Hey…”

“So are we meeting with others on the way, or do we just go straight to the party?”

“I think we just head straight over there. Ibuki sent me the directions,” Tomoko pulled her phone out from inside her coat. “Now what kind of food do we need to bring?”

“We’re on drink duty. Also, where _do_ Ibuki and the Imposter live?”

“Quite close to the real world. As such, we may be interrupted by some ambitious trick-or-treaters during the night.”

“If Ibuki breaks out the guitar, we won’t have to worry about that.”

“So, are we going or not?”

 

* * *

 

The sky was already getting darker when they left for the walk, sun hidden behind a mass of clouds. It’d had been brighter when they’d gone into the supermarket for those giant colas. Between them, they had to lug five large cola bottles, as well as two crates filled with water, ramune, Blue Ram, and some non-alcoholic wine they’d stumbled across.

The route towards the house was bound to be dark when it was later into the night – few street lights, more houses that looked uninhabited. Which naturally made it the perfect environment for a party. They had an easier time tracking down the right house when they spotted the largest house around, loud music and lights blaring through all corners.

“Found it.”

One room on the top floor had the curtains drawn without a trace of light coming through. From what they’d heard, no doubt that was the SHSL Animator’s room…Ryota Mitarai, or something.

“Can someone else get the door?” Tess asked. “I’ve got too much in my hands.”

“Don’t we all?”

With no free hands, Tomoko used her foot to knock on the door twice. After no response for a while, she made an attempt hit the doorbell, failing repeatedly.

Eventually she dropped her foot down and sighed. “Come on Shinjiro, you have a free arm!”

“Fine.” He shifted the bottle he was holding over to one arm and effortlessly rang the doorbell. The group were sure they heard someone yell from the other side, but the music drowned out what they were saying.

As Ibuki finally opened the door, the very first thing Shinjiro noticed was the costume she was wearing. “Oh I _knew_ there was a reason she wanted you to wear that, Tomoko.”

Those who know the RWBY series would probably be able to figure it out, but just in case: Ibuki stood in the doorway wearing a (most likely handmade again) Nora Valkyrie cosplay, wielding a hammer over her shoulder.

“I…don’t get it,” Tess muttered to Shinjiro.

“The two of them are childhood friends in the series, and it’s so obvious Ibuki’s character has a crush on Tomoko’s throughout.” He turned back to Ibuki. “So, how late are we?”

“Not very. Ibuki’s only had five or six people so far! We even convinced Ryota-chan to join us!”

Glancing round the hammer that sat over her shoulder, the four people in the door spotted the pale animator wearing a grey shirt with writing on it – Error 404 Costume Not Found – currently talking to Chiaki and Hajime, wearing Mario and Luigi costumes. Chiaki took notice and waved in their direction. Another voice (obviously Leon) shouted from a back room connected to the kitchen.

“Oi, who just showed up?”

“It’s just us.” Ian entered and dropped the bottles he was holding onto the kitchen countertop, unsure whether there would even be enough room for them.

“It’s about time!” Leon had gotten close and dropped the tone of his voice. His costume wasn’t that different to his usual self – he looked like some kind of werewolf musician. “I haven’t been able to make any conversation with Maizono-chan!”

“Okay, confessing your love of your _crush_ to your _best friend_ seems to have hindered things significantly.” Ian pushed him off, brushing some of the fake fur off his white jacket. “What is going on? Last year, you had no problems with her!”

“I dunno, embarrassment?” He scratched the back of his head. “Just, don’t tell anyone I admitted that, ‘kay?”

“Yeah, yeah, got it. Now who else is here?”

In the other room, everyone else currently in attendance were conversing over whatever drinks Ibuki and the Imposter had already. Sayaka in the obligatory Harley Quinn costume, Kitty as Holly Golightly (the Breakfast at Tiffany’s character, not the singer), DJ who looked almost like the spitting image of Hunk from Voltron, Duncan in an eerily familiar chainsaw killer costume, and Nagito in black clothing with various candy stuck to it.

“Uh, what exactly are you meant to be, Komaeda-kun?” Tomoko had also entered the room.

“He’s the floor of a movie theatre,” Hajime spoke up from the kitchen. Noting the confusion, Nagito explained.

“As luck would have it, I got a very large stain on my first costume, so I had to put this one together at the very last minute.”

“I…see.”

“Well quit standing around!” Kitty grabbed her by the arm. “Come and join in!”

While Tomoko was dragged to the almost-empty food table, and Ian managed to drag Leon back over to Sayaka, Shinjiro waited by the door, now with no more room to move around. And the amount of space was only going to drop more when the doorbell rang again. Even more so when he was greeted by…

“Woohoo! Party!”

Shinjiro shuffled back. “Hey Owen. Right on time.”

Like Duncan, he was in a similar monster costume to the one he wore for a challenge during World Tour. Behind him was Izzy in a mummy costume, Beth in a bumblebee costume, and the popular girl trio reprising their roles from last year’s festival as the Heathers, except Dakota had put a zombie spin on her Heather Chandler.

“Wasn’t Noah coming with you?”

“I thought he was here already. Didn’t he show up with Emma and Kitty?”

“I haven’t seen him. You might wanna look for him—UGH!” With help from the girls, Owen forced his way through the narrow doorway, losing a couple of the legs in the process…not to mention eventually falling through the doorway and crushing Shinjiro on the floor.

“Oops, sorry.”

“…no…problem…”

***

Half an hour passed, and even more people had shown up, still with some time left before the party activities officially started. Mondo and Chihiro, clearly picking up on DJ’s idea, had donned Shiro and Pidge costumes (with Mondo having sprayed his entire pompadour white). Somehow, they’d convinced Kiyotaka to join them, and wear a vampire costume (after they couldn’t get him to go as a character from Boku no Hero). Courtney came as a zombie bride, Brody had the obligatory Deadpool costume, Geoff as a scarecrow, Bridgette as Alice in Wonderland, even Rodney as Wreck it Ralph.

As it turned out, Ibuki’s house was so big that the downstairs area alone could fit 40 people. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, there were a few more than that, meaning people had to expand into the garden, which was equally as big. Thankfully, the only music was coming from Ibuki’s phone rather than her guitar; even more thankfully, there wasn’t any death metal rock music on the playlist. Despite that, it was still quite loud.

In the midst of it all, a fair amount of the group were right at home, dancing, drinking, being lectured by the Imposter whenever somebody got dangerously close to breaking a piece of furniture. A handful were out on the terrace in the back – close to the action but not overly eager to get involved in it all. Away from all of them were the few who were incredibly out of place at this sort of thing. Naturally, Kiyotaka was one of those people, situating himself near the very bottom of the garden holding a bottle of water.

Despite Mondo trying to convince him to stay in there a little longer, he’d just found it all to be too much for the time being. _Maybe when things quieten down_ , he’d told himself.

“I see you’re keeping your distance, too.”

Holding a ramune in one hand and a jack-o-lantern in the other, Tomoko walked over to him, carefully putting the pumpkin down on the floor.

“This isn’t an atmosphere I’m used to either, believe it or not.”

The two of them stood in silence for a moment, looking back up the garden to the house, the only sounds between them being their breath, the music, and distant yelling from inside, and so it was for what felt like ages.

“Seriously, can we find something to talk about? This is getting creepy.”

Both of them laughed, still not talking about anything really. Making an attempt to converse with her, Kiyotaka thought back to one of the people at the party.

“I’m unsure if you know, but what exactly was Harold-kun’s costume supposed to represent?”

“It was from a Total Drama challenge when they had to design a superhero. He was called Captain Alberta and…well, don’t be too surprised if he walks around the party farting and burping.”

“Um, alright,” confused, he just took another sip of his water. “I will admit, I’m unsure I want to return to the party.”

“Why? It’ll be fun! I’ve never been to one of these, but if Ibuki’s planning it…”

“But tomorrow is a school day! We should not be up until late hours of the night when we have classes the next day!”

Tomoko wanted to listen to the rest of what he was saying, but couldn’t help but notice the two missing party-goers hidden behind a bush – Noah and Emma. In the dark, she couldn’t tell what either of them were supposed to be, but it was heavily implied that they were pulling a Geoff-and-Bridgette-move. By the time Noah noticed, he made frantic gestures, obviously telling Tomoko to “get rid of Taka”. Taking the hint and having had enough of a break, she cleared her throat.

“Nobody says you have to stay to the end. You can leave at, I don’t know, 10ish, then still have enough sleep before tomorrow.” She downed the rest of her drink. “Tell you what, let’s just go back in and see what exactly Ibuki has planned, and if you don’t like it then I’m sure Oowada-kun will take you back home. And we’re both already here,” Tomoko smiled at her friend.

Kiyotaka thought about this. “You’re right. And anyway, I suppose it isn’t bad to have a break once in a while,” his demeanour then suddenly changed back to the usual. “Only as long as there is no consumption of alcoholic beverages!”

“No problem, my group were on drink duty.”

As they re-entered the building, Emma glanced over the bush. “All clear, Noah.”

“It’s about time. There’s only so much of Taka I can take every day.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second half of the Halloween party.

“Right on time, you two!” Ibuki pushed two cups of punch into Tomoko and Kiyotaka’s hands, with spider ice cubes floating in them. “We’re all about to start the games!”

“You also might want to hurry if you want some of the extra food!” Izzy yelled.

Hearing his stomach growling, Kiyotaka went ahead to grab a plate, with Tomoko following. Now there was even more food on the table: heaps of meat in the shape of a body, green devilled eggs, mini wieners wedged inside curly fries, orange Oreos, cake pops, caramel apples, dirt cups…there did seem to be more dessert foods than savoury.

Tomoko reached over for a plate, but quickly became distracted by the giant pile of red cups piled up, somebody trying to hide it with a coat and a few pillows. “Uh…maybe I shouldn’t ask what happened here?”

Geoff suddenly appeared behind her. “We were having a small game of beer pong, but bailed when Taka came back in.”

“Oh. That makes perfect sense.”

…

A majority of the games were highly childish ones that the hosts had tried to put an adult spin on. Unfortunately (for some), none of these twists involved drinking. “Thanks again, Taka,” was what came from a few people. One of the last games that the three had planned was essentially a “poke a pumpkin” game, only the players had to throw darts at them from further away. About five or six wanted to carve pumpkins instead.

Despite the game being played outside, there was a group who still opted to stay inside, including Sayaka.

“So Maizono-san,” Sonia, in a witch’s costume, approached the idol, “I heard that you went on a date using one of those Date Tickets last week.”

“That’s right. They are real, and it doesn’t look like there are any time limits for them.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but did we not have something similar at the old Hope’s Peak?”

“Well, not that exactly. We’d meet up between some classes, but not like that.”

“In the 77th Class, we would have all the fun in our classes. All thanks to Nanami-san!” Sonia had some more of her drink. “But do you think that the Date Tickets are worth it?”

“All the two of us did was spend some time talking in the library, but I guess if you go somewhere different then maybe…”

The girls were cut off by some loud cheering from outside, in response to the surprise player who was dominating the “poke a pumpkin”.

“Woah, way to go Tess!”

“Maybe you should have come as Katniss instead!”

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

Tess threw some of her wig behind her head. “Lots of nights in bars during the last year. Enough said.”

Most just nodded in understanding.

“Hey, maybe on another school day, we could use another Date Ticket and show me how it’s done!” It wasn’t clear who said that, but a few people seemed to agree.

“Sure, why not? Uh, whoever it was.” Tess ran over to look for the darts and collect her winnings, while Dakota nudged Ian.

“Did you know she could do that?”

“Well she always used to before we came here, but I never thought she was that great at it. Guess she’s improved, huh?”

“I found the darts! Who’s up next?”

 

* * *

 

By 11pm, most people were either tired, hiding their drunkenness, or were being convinced to leave by Kiyotaka. The Imposter noticed this and decided to end the party with the final thing Ibuki had had planned – awards for the costumes. Most of the food had been pushed to the left side of the table, with all the trophies (made by Ryota) on the right, each of them filled with candy. Beside it was a barrel filled with candy, and some pre-filled bags.

Some of the awards included best dressed male and female, best made costume, least recognisable, scariest, cutest, funniest, sexiest, best group…it was almost like Ibuki was trying to make sure everyone received one.

All the votes had been cast, and Ryota stood on a crate next to the food table holding a card with the voting results on.

“Okay, so from what Mioda-san’s told me…if you win a trophy, you can fill it with some of the candy in the barrel over there,” he pointed to the other side of the table. “Regardless of whether you win one or not, you also get one of the orange bags, which are also full of candy.”

Owen raised a hand.

“And no, the trophies are _not_ made of chocolate.”

His hand went back down again.

“And so, first things first…”

Best male was awarded to Owen, best female to Kitty (solely for accuracy); cutest was Beth; Harold was the funniest; Heather’s crew won best (and only) group; Brody was obviously the least recognisable due to the mask, while DJ was the most similar to his normal self. Since the Heathers outfits had already won, Ian won a modified award for the hottest, rather than sexiest. Surprisingly, and for a change, there were people who thought Shinjiro should have won the award instead.

One of the prizes made up on the spot was awarded to Gundam for his hamster pumpkin carving – another was _best last minute put-together_ for Nagito.

“And now, for the final--”

“Um,” Courtney spoke up. “What about the other few on the table?”

Ibuki then pushed forward, picking up three of the remaining trophies, dunking all of them at once into the candy barrel. “These are all for Ibuki, for best made costume!”

“What?! You can’t have three!”

Tomoko tapped her on the shoulder. “Hers, mine, and Rodney’s. I think.”

Before Courtney could protest again, Ryota continued. “Like I was saying, onto the final award, and probably the most important – the scariest--”

Ryota was cut off when the lights suddenly went out, the only source of light coming from a pumpkin on the food table. Everyone immediately began murmuring among themselves, asking to find a stronger light or something. It took a while, but Dakota pulled a phone out of her pocket and turned on the torch.

“Seriously? Who turned out the lights?”

“And where’s that stink coming from?”

“Owen…!”

“What? It wasn’t me this time, swearsies!” Everyone went quiet when they heard a quiet groaning sound from the kitchen, which also had every light (even the pumpkins) off.

“Please. It’s just gonna be someone in a costume.”

“W-well _obviously_! But still…”

Another groan, this one much louder than the last.

“Okay, seriously Duncan. Knock it off.”

“As much as I love doing things like this, it isn’t me Princess.”

Dakota pointed her torch light towards the kitchen doorway, the light settling on the source of both the stench and the noise. A person with dirt all over their clothing, tears in everything, and fake blood splattered everywhere. When the other party-goers spotted one of their arms only attached by 10%, they erupted into a fit of screams and scrambling into the other room.

“ZOMBIE!!”

Said zombie immediately began laughing, walking towards the light switch and flicking it on. Everyone just stared in disbelief, gasping for breath. “You guys would never survive the apocalypse!”

“Wha-- Shawn?!”

“I-I think it’s fair to say that Shawn wins the award…” Ryota staggered over, face even paler than it normally is. “H…here…”

“Thanks,” Shawn tossed one of the candies inside it into his mouth.

“Dude…that was _awesome_!”

“No, it wasn’t!!”

“Come on, lighten up a little. It’s Halloween, after all.”

The feeling of terror quickly dissipated, being replaced by people praising Shawn’s scarily accurate costume.

Tomoko had lost most of the liquid in her cup when the scare happened, as she noticed when she spotted the puddle at her feet. “Aw crap. Sorry Ibuki.”

“No worries, Tomoko-chan! Ibuki will cover for you!”

“Great party, by the way. Even Ishimaru-kun enjoyed it.”

“More so after that little chat you two had before,” her friend smirked.

“Oh, shut up…” Tomoko lightly shoved her, both girls laughing. In the meantime, Kitty and Izzy had to push Owen back through the door to get out, not giving any cares this time whether more fake legs fell off. Kitty then stopped as Owen was halfway through. “Hey, did Emma ever show up? And what exactly is so funny Tomoko?”

“N-nothing…hey, want me to help clear up outside?”

“Okay!”

_They’ve been out there all night, and nobody noticed…Gidgette, you have been replaced._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: more Date Ticket events, and a new event is launched.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same as last year, I'll be doing more writing while on a holiday.

The Halloween party had given Sayaka and Tess the perfect opportunity to tell other students that the Date Ticket idea wasn’t a hoax from Chris after all. As a result, Hagakure had woken from a nap in the school shop to find the room almost completely full, Owen being dragged away from the front of the line by Izzy, two Date Tickets in hand. Noticing them leaving, Hagakure glanced down by his feet resting on the countertop, with six dollars beside them.

“Come on, Big O! Izzy has a plan! Team Escope are spending the afternoon in the rec room.” She pushed one of the Date Tickets into Owen’s hand. “You go give this one to Noah, and I’ll invite Eva out, okay?”

“Wait, but why do we need two?”

“They’re only one invite per ticket. Now let’s go!”

…

Immediately after lunch, Team E-Scope assembled in the rec room. Or rather, the girls did, while they waited for Owen and Noah to arrive. And five minutes into class time, Noah dragged Owen into the room, the latter with heaps of food under his arm.

“Izzy? Why exactly did you want to call all of us out of class?”

“Yeah, I mean we spend every single day in the same apartment.”

“And you three are in the same class.”

“But our apartment doesn’t have all of the stuff in here!” She waved her arms around, indicating the dartboard, game machine and so on. “I say we spend the rest of the day in here, having tournaments in everything they have here!”

Noah surveyed the contents of the room. “Pool, darts, slot machine, Othello…” he picked up a magazine. “How can we compete with magazines?”

“Easy!” She picked up the first one she found – full of pictures of models – and flicked to a random page. “You do this and try to find the funniest or dirtiest thing on the page!”

“Of course…”

And so, clearly having taken a few too many tips from Ibuki since first arriving, the four of them spent the whole afternoon doing whatever they could get their hands on in the rec room. In the first round – pool – Izzy hit the balls so hard that a couple managed to fly off the table and embed themselves into the wall. Noah also had to wrestle a cue out of Eva’s hand after it took ten attempts to pot the final ball.

In the darts battle, Izzy was naturally the best, but not being able to match Tess’ abilities from before. Most of Noah and Owen’s missed, while once again Eva’s brute force almost destroyed more of the rec room. Noah’s time to shine came while playing Othello, not that he really seemed to care about it, while hardly anyone got lucky on the slot machine…aside from Eva, who got the machine to cough up a Chris Coin after punching it.

So as the end of the day came nearer, the four sat in the rec room with a stash of food in the middle of them, flicking through magazines whether they wanted to or not – every time Noah tossed one over his shoulder, Izzy would pull another out of her shirt and shove it in his face.

“Fine, I guess there’s no getting out of this.”

Minutes went past with nobody finding anything, surprisingly. That is, until Izzy found a magazine right at the back that was rather…questionable in appearance.

“Woah, what’s this doing in a high school?”

The other three looked over, seeing some nearly naked women on the front. “I’ve heard some of the Japanese students call them “gravure idols”. And given Teruteru almost always has one on his person, I say we don’t loo-- Izzy!”

“What? I’m curious! It looked like Junko!”

Noah facepalmed as Izzy continued to flick through the pages, with Eva and Owen just watching. Eva was almost ready to get up and head elsewhere, when the magazine fell from Izzy’s hand.

“Oh…”

“What is it, Iz?”

“This is…unexpected…”

Looking at the floor, they say that the magazine was open on a page featuring a blue haired girl, photographed in front of some pillars while wearing a white bikini type thing.

Wait…

“…Sayaka…did _this_ …?”

“The oh so pure pop musician Sayaka Maizono has been photographed almost _nude_?”

Not one of them said a word, both males going a bit red, until the final bell went. Even as they heard the voices of the others outside, nobody moved.

“So…not a word to anyone?”

“Agreed.”

 

* * *

 

In a similar fashion to Team E-Scope, Eva had offered the idea to Jo, only for a workout session after school. Both girls had been on good terms since meeting for the first time due to their compatible personalities, with both of them taking every opportunity to compete with one another. However, due to constantly working out at the same time as Brick & Lightning, they would team up in order to try and 1-up them. The evening after Eva’s “date” with her group was the only day to have been able to do so, meaning Eva walked into the gym very red in the face.

“So, how exactly did that thing with your _teammates_ go?” Jo asked, starting up the treadmill.

“As well as you’d expect with Izzy leading it.”

“Then what’s with the redness?”

“Don’t ask. The less you know, the better.” Eva also started up the treadmill next to Jo’s, most of the colour immediately vanishing from her face. “So, we doing this or what?”

It was another two minutes until Lightning showed up, then another five for Brick. The group took up the treadmills in the room, each pair changing the speed every few seconds in attempts to outrun the other.

“Hah! That all you got, Soggy Drawers?”

“Far from it!” Brick ramped up the power setting, easily managing to keep up.

“If either of you want to drop out for today, feel free,” Eva smirked.

“Lightning ain’t no quitter!”

A knock at the door drew their attention away from one another. Cameron poked his head round it.

“Oh, what’s up Bubble Nerd?”

“Well…” he trailed off when he saw all four treadmills violently shaking while the four athletes ran on it. “Uh, how fast are those things going exactly?”

“I dunno,” Eva looked down at the display, “25km/h?”

“What?!” Lightning immediately pushed it up to 26km/h (only possible because the student body had Kazuichi, B and Chihiro), only to lose his footing and go flying off the end of the treadmill, smashing into the wall beside Cameron.

Jo then looked at the display on Eva’s, which didn’t say 25 at all, only 18km/h. “Nice one!” The girls high-fived, watching Brick as he began to tire out.

“A-anyway,” Cameron adjusted his glasses. “the class reps are planning something for the event of the year and are looking for numbers.”

 

* * *

 

“Okie dokie! That’s everyone, I think.” Cameron put three more names into the box in front of him. He, along with the other class reps (Jasmine, Chiaki, Sierra, Geoff), were in charge of organising the event – a Secret Santa.

“Alright. So I guess we’ll leave this here for tomorrow, and draw the names out then!”

The five of them left the meeting room, unaware of the student hidden behind the door as they exited. The moment all five of them were out of sight, Tess crept back into the room and began ruffling around for the sheet of paper with Sayaka’s name on it.

“Ian…Nagito…Beth…where is it?! Ah, there we go!”

She dropped the slip of paper in her right pocket, removing a similar one from her left to leave in its place.

“There, no one will suspect a thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: the Light Music Club have another sleepover


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being on a holiday has really helped me get through my writer's block, it seems - nearly three chapters written in two hours!

During a later evening, the three Light Music Club members were back at the Fukuhara-Costello house for yet another sleepover, specifically in the kitchen like last time, while Punk Division’s other three were sat in the living room watching TV. With Christmas approaching, yet still miles away, Ibuki proposed doing more baking, only this time gingerbread houses.

“So, did any of us get each other for the _Secret_ Santa?”

“Nope. Does that mean we can tell each other?”

“I guess.”

"Even though it defeats the entire purpose of a Secret Santa."

Kitty pulled out her slip. “I got DJ.”

“Ibuki has Akane-chan! Easy!”

“Right, don’t you _dare_ get the wrong idea, but I have Ishimaru.” Two plastic bowls were thrown across the kitchen when both girls went “ooohh” at the same time. “I _said_ don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t have control over the damn thing.”

“Well it should be as easy as buying for Akane, right? I mean, you know him.”

“Hmm. True. But…well, you know when you know someone, but you don’t know them?”

“That’s exactly why Tomoko-chan and Kiyotaka-chan need to get one of those Date Tickets!”

Tomoko scoffed. “Good luck with that. It’s hard enough to get him out of class for something work related.”

"Just go to the library or something - it's the most work related place you're gonna get at the moment."

"Alright, can we stop talking about this and focus on what we're doing? Ibuki's getting her batter everywhere."

"Eeek! Five second rule!"

"Although it's been longer than five seconds," Kitty muttered as Ibuki attempted to gather it all up and onto one of the waiting trays.

"How long does this need to all bake for?"

Tomoko pulled on a waiting pair of oven gloves and picked up hers and Ibuki's trays. "I'd say thirty minutes each, an hour overall if yours won't fit."

"Well Ibuki doesn't want to wait that long!"

Rolling her eyes, Tomoko kept on shoving and moving the trays until all of them (near enough) fit inside.

“And now we just wait for this to finish cooking! In the meantime, let’s make some hot cocoa, build a fort and binge more movies!”

“Doesn’t that seem a little childish?” Tomoko went to the kettle. “Also, the guys are still in there. Don’t count on them leaving any time soon.”

“What are they even doing?”

Peeking through the pane of glass in the door, the three girls came across an…unexpected sight…

“Uh, is that Leon-chan…dancing with…”

“Ian?”

“Yep.”

“Woah.” Kitty cleared her throat. “I knew they were close, but I never knew…”

“What? Oh, no! It isn’t like that! See, Ian’s teaching Leon how to dance.”

“But why ballroom specifically?”

“Uh…” Tomoko paused. “I don’t know?” _Above all the others,_ they _can’t find out about this!_ “All I know is that while we were away, Shinjiro wanted Kazuichi to fix our TV box, so it would pick up stations in a different country.”

“Why?”

“They have a celebrity dance contest every year in this one place that he wants Leon to practice from.”

“…but why? We have a show like that over here.”

“Ask _him_ that!”

"And does he really think he can copy the routines directly from the TV in real time?"

"We'll see."

<p></p>

Eventually, the girls were able to succeed in pushing the boys out of the living room and into the games room, allowing them to hole up in front of the TV surrounded by blankets and pillows, Tomoko flicking through the channels. Only she had followed through on the idea of gingerbread houses - Kitty just did something fancy with the individual pieces after repeated failures. Ibuki, on the other hand...

"What...are _those_...?"

"Ibuki started this on one of her school trips in Japan. For years, she's always wanted to make a cookie statue of her boobs."

"Wha!" The remote slipped from Tomoko's hand. "Why would anyone, let alone you, want to do something like that?!"

"Beats Ibuki."

"Okay, there's nothing on here. And if we watched Shinjiro's dance programmes, I'd be maimed."

"I don't know about you, but I can't be bothered to grab any movies this time."

"So what to do?"

The three girls sat there thinking, until Kitty spoke up again.

"I know! How about a game of M.A.S.H?"

"Ibuki is down for that idea!"

"Oh, so you've played it before? I didn't know if they had it in Japan. Some relatives from there hadn't ever heard of it."

"Izzy introduced it to Ibuki when we first got here."

"And I've heard of it, but never played it before."

"Okay, you got any paper?" Finding one of Ian's notebooks on the sofa, she reached over and ripped an untouched page out of it, handing it over. "So, we write the letters that spell MASH on the top of the sheet - these represent different homes: mansion, apartment, shack, house. Then we make six lists of five crushes, numbers, vehicles, places, colours and jobs. It's supposed to tell your future."

"And how does it do that?"

"You pick a number, say 7, and I cross off every seventh item until only one thing in each list is left over."

"Ah, I get it now."

"Let's make all our lists at the same time, then each cross off the list of someone different."

...

Tomoko - M A S H  
Kiyotaka, DJ, Leon, Duncan, Ibuki  
0, 1, 2, 3, 4  
Mini, Ferrari, Vauxhall, golf buggy, bike  
Tokyo, here, Tenerife, Antarctica, London  
Red, purple, silver, blue, black  
Interpreter, screenwriter, CEO, binman, janitor

Ibuki - M A S H  
Mikan, Imposter, Shinjiro, Hajime, Rantaro  
0, 2, 5, 20, 100  
Golf buggy, jet ski, tour bus, Ferrari, Toyota  
Here, Akihabara, Ibiza, Morocco, Jabberwock Island  
White, blue, pink, black, purple  
Businesswoman, rock musician, pooper scooper, teacher, unemployed

Kitty - M A S H  
Devin, Mickey, Chris, Owen, Byakuya  
0, 1, 2, 7, 12  
Ferrari, chicken bus, Vauxhall, plane, jet ski  
Tokyo, Los Angeles, Sahara Desert, here, India  
Red, yellow, green, grey, silver  
CEO, pooper scooper, actress, editor, cop

"Okay, Ibuki has many questions. What's a chicken bus? Who is Mickey?"

"And where's Jabberwock Island?"

"That place is where Ibuki and her classmates went for the trip I mentioned earlier. And the other things?"

"Mickey's another person who Kitty was on the Ridonculous Race with."

"As for the chicken bus...well, I'll show you in a bit." She snatched Tomoko's sheet, passing her own to Ibuki. "Alright Tomoko, pick a number."

"Uh, 10."

"And Ibuki, mine is 4."

"Ibuki picks 7."

As they worked on each other's lists, Tomoko a bit slower than the others, the door to the living room opened and the missing resident came in.

"Um, did I miss something?"

"Tess, how come you're back so late?"

"Out with Sayaka again. What's happening in here?"

"M.A.S.H. Okay Tomoko, I've done yours."

"Already?"

"Let's hear it."

"Tomoko will be living in an apartment in Antarctica, working as a binman, riding a blue bike, and will have one child with Kiyotaka."

"Of fricking course. And I think...this is Ibuki's...done." She did a once-over, then read from it. "You'll live in a house on Jabberwock Island with 100 kids, work as a businesswoman, drive a blue golf buggy and be married to Hajime."

"All good up to the businesswoman. Also, best not tell Chiaki-chan about the Hajime-chan part. And Kitty!" She cleared her throat for effect. "12 kids with Devin, in a mansion here, driving a red Ferrari, pooper scooper job."

Kitty laughed. "Eeww. Let's make sure Carrie doesn't know about the Devin part too."

"At least it isn't going to happen. I mean, Antarctica? Really?"

"Ibuki admits, Jabberwock Island has been going downhill recently."

Out of nowhere, another sheet was thrown into the fort. "My turn!"

"Tess! Oh, okay, I see you've already filled yours out."

Tess - M A S H  
Topher, Ryota, Ian, Beardo, Chef  
0, 1, 2, 3, 9  
Jet ski, tour bus, Mini, 4x4, no vehicle  
Paris, Okinawa, Australia, Tenerife, here  
Black, purple, yellow, pale blue, silver  
CEO, journalist, headmaster, unemployed, pop star

"Um, Ian? Are you sure?"

"It's all in good fun, but nonsense anyway. 6."

"Kitty, do your thing."

In less than a minute, every list had been whittled down to one item.

"Let's see here, journalist, purple 4x4, an apartment here, and two children with..." All three girls looked at the name left over, then back up to Tess.

"Yep, definitely nonsense."

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to look for some alcohol to add to my cocoa." Tomoko got up to crawl out of the fort.

"But I thought all of you were underage. Why would you have any?"

"How do we know the influence Leon may have had on the others?"

As the other three stayed there, Ibuki looked back to Kitty.

"So, about that chicken bus..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: shopping for Secret Santa


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys have a quick look for presents, and Tomoko discovers the one food she can't stand.

Nearing the end of November, the majority of people with no clue as to what to buy their classmates for Secret Santa. The same night as the sleepover, the three girls had shared ideas and hit the Internet. Tomoko bought a new watch for Kiyotaka, along with a red scarf, both of which were purchasable from the new supermarket. Ibuki decided to go out to some butchers shop to buy a stock pile of meat for the food loving gymnast, while Kitty continued to hunt for something DJ-like online.

The three guys of Punk Division had chosen to tag along with the other last-minute buyers for their respective recipients - Leon obviously had Sayaka, Ian had Leshawna, and Shinjiro had Fuyuhiko.

"So, any more ideas, you guys?" Leon asked the others, the three of them back in their living room.

"The only thing I know Fuyuhiko likes is karinto biscuits according to his ID. Where the ever-loving hell am I supposed to find karinto in Canada?!"

"Hello? Ever heard of the Internet, or the foreign food section, perhaps?"

"If where we're staying is half-Japanese populated, then they're bound to have it at the supermarket."

"Anyway, what do I get for Maizono-chan? Last year was a pink scarf, and I have no clue what to do this year. None!"

"Well, why not start off at the supermarket? You never know."

...

Oddly enough, that Daisaku fellow wasn't in today, only the person everyone assumed was his wife, as was Tess by one of the shelves.

"We just can't seem to get rid of her, can we?"

"Come on, help me search!" The first shelf was filled with games, books, DVDs and other things of that nature.

"Cards Against Humanity, some travel magazine, none of these are any good."

"Any idea if she likes tea?" Shinjiro asked, holding up a box of rose hip tea in one hand, ginger tea in the other. Both of these hit the floor however, when he looked to the other end of the store. "Yes! Found the karinto!"

In the meantime, Ian had wandered over to Tess, still a little hesitant to say anything with the memories of the rest of his life still intact. Despite living together again, they hadn't spoken an awful lot since France.

"Uh, hey. Who are you buying for?"

"You really want to know? It isn't pleasant." The lack of an answer made her continue. "Sugar."

"Yikes. Need any help?"

"I saw the show, all I need to find is the most disgusting food they sell here, then buy ten of them."

Ian couldn't help but laugh about how true that was.

"I've been meaning to ask someone - what are the odds of both Leon and Tomoko getting the people they should be coupled with?"

Tess leaned over to Ian to whisper in his ear. "I rigged it."

"You did what?"

"I know how badly Ibuki wants Tomoko and Kiyotaka to get together, so I thought I'd give her a hand. Same goes for Leon."

"Wait, so does Sayaka actually _like_ him?"

"Can't say for sure, but she does talk about him a loooo...oh my god." Her attention turned to Shinjiro who was waddling towards the tills, the largest bag of food she'd ever seen in his arms. Balanced on top were the two boxes of tea.

"I can't believe you forgot your wallet when the reason we came out here was...woah! A little help?"

<p></p>

That same evening, an additional self-defence training session for Tomoko came to an end. She walked out of the clubhouse in front of Sakura, a bag under her arm.

"Thanks again for helping me out with all this, Oogami-san. I know there are probably other things you'd rather do."

"It isn't a problem at all. Another final tip you may find useful," Sakura reached into her own bag and took out a bottle of protein coffee. "I find this a good source of extra energy when I train, so I thought you might want to give it a try."

"Sure, why not?" Sakura passed the bottle to Tomoko and she took a small sip out of the...

...

...

_Oh, my..._

"How is it?"

Forcing a neutral expression a little longer, at the same time ignoring the highly unpleasant feeling in her stomach, she roughly swallowed the rest of the liquid down her throat. "I don't think it's my kind of drink, but thanks anyway."

"I see. Well," Sakura put the bottle back into her bag. "It didn't hurt to try."

"Nope," the speed of the response was a bit quick, but whatever.

"I should probably meet up with Asahina now. She was meeting with somebody else for training of her own."

"Shinjiro?"

"I'm unsure of that myself. I shall see you tomorrow."

The moment Sakura was out of sight, Tomoko ran to a corner and released all the fluids that were inside her, or so it felt.

_Holy crap, that was disgusting! How can she drink-- oh God..._

More puke hit the ground in front of her feet as Tomoko continued to heave.

"Oh wow, are you okay?!" She heard someone hold a bottle of water in front of her face. Tomoko snatched it and put it to her mouth in a heartbeat.

"Gh, thanks. Tess, again? Why is it I keep on running into you this year?"

"I just had a meeting with Asahina-san."

"Ah, so it was you. Wait, a meeting?"

"To discuss when I could get her to help me with swimming. I'd heard Shinjiro saying they'd done that last year. Are they still doing that?"

"I'm not sure."

"But seriously, what happened to you?"

"I tried some of Sakura's protein coffee and it made me puke." Another heave. Sure it was a disgusting drink in her opinion, but the vomiting was becoming a slight cause for concern. Okay, a big cause for concern. "Do you know if it's possible to be allergic to protein powder, or coffee?"

"I doubt it on the coffee part. You should probably look into it, or get Seiko or Mikan."

Tomoko stopped for a moment. "How do you know about Seiko?"

"Had to get some medication for Sayaka before the vacation."

"Right, duh. I think this stuff might be messing with my head, just a little." On cue, Tess had to step back to avoid another wave of the green stuff.

"Okay, we're going to Seiko right now." Tess put an arm round her waist, just in case. "Just keep drinking the water, and don't care about whether or not anything lands on my shoes."

"...that's a little unlike what I was expecting of you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE - I know this is likely a very inaccurate portrayal of allergies, but whatever  
> Next time: exchanging presents, and an interesting discovery is made...


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Presents are exchanged, and another interesting discovery is made.

Come the final day before winter break, people were scrambling to find their Secret Santa people before classes started - just because class was optional, didn't mean you could freely wander into other classrooms. In the meantime, Gwen was having a look in the school shop. Most of the people in her class had found hidden gems for the recipients they don't know that well, so chose to look in there for herself, on the off chance there'd be something for her folks.

"Morning Gwen."

Not Hagakure from his booth, but Trent.

"Oh, Trent." Despite the whole thing with them, Duncan and Courtney, things hadn't been awkward between the two of them. They'd lived in the same apartment for their freshman year at NHPA, but Trent ended up moving into a different house with some guys from then on. They'd managed to keep up a friendship, essentially forming their own group with Leshawna and Harold. "What are you doing here?"

"I just heard they have some new options for those Date Ticket things. You used one yet?"

"Nope, I still think it's a scam."

Both of them looked at the notice board behind a napping Hagakure, where a number of posters and flyers were tacked on, where before there was only a piece of paper with the price on it.

"Woah. I'd have thought we'd long run out of money to afford all of these."

"Seems shady if you ask me."

Some of the things on the board included a paintball centre, stargazing trips, concerts, theatre shows, essentially things that would have two years ago been deemed as far out of the price range.

"I think we can also have more than two per ticket now, but it costs more. Uh, Gwen?"

The goth girl pushed Hagakure's feet off the desk in order to wake him up, sliding three dollars into its place.

"Hey, book on two people for the stargazing thing." She then turned to Trent. "You free next week?"

"I guess you don't think it's a scam anymore."

...

By lunchtime, there were still a few people left who hadn't picked up their presents. In their group, only Ian and Kitty had their presents (a pair of headphones from Noah and a glittery phone case from Kiyotaka respectively).

"And here I thought you'd be rigging it both ways," Ian whispered to Tess.

"As if. It'd be too obvious."

"How did Sugar react to hers?"

"Opened the packaging, dropped onto the table, ate the lot within the minute."

"Ooh, Akane was the same!" Ibuki chipped in, overhearing them.

"But it was raw meat, right?"

"Exactly!"

The siblings shared a look of concern, when a small square package dropped onto her tray. Tess looked up to see her Santa. "Oh, Beardo. Thanks."

He made a *ding* noise as he walked back to his table.

She started to rip the packaging open to see what was in there.

"CD. I mean, obviously."

"But whose? One of his?"

She pulled off the last of the packaging, when three discs slid out: one of his own, and two blank ones.

"There's nothing on these."

"I guess it's so you can record your own," Sayaka said.

"Hmm, okay this is actually a good one."

"So now," Shinjiro bit into a sandwich, "it's me, Tomoko, Leon and Sayaka we're waiting on."

Leon looked over at him halfway through a burger, suddenly dropping it and scrambling in his bag.

Tomoko rolled her eyes. "Clueless."

Leon got up from his seat and walked behind Ian and Tess to get to Sayaka...

...only to find her doing the same thing.

"Oh, uh," they both said at the same time. "Merry Christmas from your..." The two of them laughed as they couldn't stop talking in unison. Tess couldn't hold back a small squeal, while Kitty made her friends laugh with a "just make out already" under her breath.

"Thanks." The two stayed stood opposite one another as they opened their gifts. Even when the Imposter dropped off Shinjiro's present, the other six couldn't look away. Except for Ian.

"You were saying?" He whispered to his sister again.

"I never said I didn't rig _their_ choices both ways, only Tomoko's."

"All right!" Leon had been given a baseball with a small screen on it. "See, you throw this and it measures your throw by clocking the speed it travels at. Thanks a lot, Maizono-chan!"

She smiled in return and opened hers. In the end, Leon had taken up Shinjiro's tea idea, while also picking something of his own - something advertised as a "red costume". It was literally a red onesie.

"Ooh, cute! Thank you, Kuwata-kun."

"So I guess after watching that exchange, mine'll look pathetic, huh?" Shinjiro ripped into his, but a large, poorly wrapped cylinder dropped in front of him almost knocked it from his hand. "Watch it...Lightning? I guess that means you're for her," he pointed at Tomoko in the next seat over.

"I don't know much about you, so I just stuck with what I know."

Sharing a nervous look with Tess, she just went straight ahead and tore the top of the paper off. A blue sports drink bottle was revealed underneath.

"Oh." _THANK GOODNESS_. "Thanks Light-- he's gone. Never mind."

"I think we can all agree it's more practical than expected," Kitty said. "Anyone got any more rubbish?"

"Yeah, let me just get the bottom off the..." Tomoko trailed off when the bottom half of the bottle was revealed. Taped along it were nine or ten sachets of protein powder, with another protein drink sat inside.

"Of course," Ian muttered.

The bell went at that moment, with six of them talking among each other and putting their trays away. Only Tess and Tomoko remained. They both looked silently down at the vast number of protein products. Eventually, Tess spoke.

"So did you bring that medication with you?"

"Fortunately."

* * *

 

For a change this year, the Los Angeles twins returned home in order to celebrate Christmas with their parents, whom both Tomoko and Shinjiro were yet to meet. As a result, Tomoko had been tasked with all the cooking...for five it turns out, since Kiyotaka and co. had been invited over. Ian and Tess still weren't back to see in the new year, as they'd chosen to stay with their parents until everyone went back to the academy. Shinjiro had been left home alone on this particular day as Tomoko had gone out shopping.

In the middle of a morning shower, it became clear that someone had moved his shower gel.

"Ugh, really Leon?" Snatching a towel and wrapping it round his waist (even though nobody else would see him), he stormed out of the bathroom muttering to himself. "I invite you over for one day, and you mess with me because your _bro_ is in another country. Tch, not in my room..."

Or Tomoko's, or the games room, or downstairs. Which left Tess' room.

"Jesus." Opening the door and spotting it on her vanity table, he picked it up, taking the opportunity to look around the one room he was always banned from going into. Actually, that _everyone_ was banned from going into.

Next to the shower gel was a box of purple hair dye and a hair elastic, contacts and a glasses case. A yellow nightdress was thrown on the bed, as was her school uniform, not even the slightest bit neat.

But what caught his eye the most was a large briefcase under her bed. It only alerted him because he thought it was his terrible vision without his glasses playing tricks on him. Careful not to get any water on it, he set the (very real) briefcase on the bed and pulled it apart.

He wasn't expecting it to work. _Aren't these supposed to have passcodes?_

And even more than that, he certainly wasn't expecting the briefcase to be an incredibly technologically advanced laptop. Turning it on out of concerned curiosity, he glanced over the icons on the homepage. Among the many, there was a notebook image that was only labelled as "data", and another icon with a green A.E, labelled as "SAISEI".

Like all thoughts of showering had vanished from his mind, Shinjiro was about to click on it, when he heard the door opening, causing him to immediately stash the laptop under the bed reflexively.

Shower gel in hand, he returned to the bathroom and muttered, "who _is_ this woman?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: the laptop is shown to the other two in the house


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The others in the house see Tess' laptop, and Tomoko has a training session with Kiyotaka.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To go along with this, I'm adding the profiles of Tomoko, Shinjiro and Ian onto my behind-the-scenes work.

"I'm telling you, she's up to something!"

When Ian returned to the house alone, since Tess had been invited out with friends the moment she crossed the border back into Canada, Shinjiro grabbed both him and Tomoko, and pulled them into Tess' room.

"She most certainly is NOT the new, super sweet vlog star we all thought she was!"

"Oh come on, _again_ with this dumb conspiracy theory?"

"So maybe I was joking around before, but this time I'm deathly serious. Just watch this." He dropped the laptop on top of the nightdress, which he hadn't dared to move, and pulled it open again, the laptop instantly powering up.

"Well someone needs to learn how to log out."

"Hey, what's that all about? "Data"?"

"I dunno, let's see." Shinjiro slid his finger over the touchpad and double tapped, so that the "data" page turned on. Within a few seconds, a number of folders were on display, each one with a different person's name and initials on it. Some of them were unfamiliar to them, while others rung more than a few bells - Sayaka Maizono, Ibuki Mioda, Chris McLean.

"Woah, this is weird as hell."

"Are we sure this isn't Sierra's instead?"

"What the hell is she doing with all of this?"

"And more importantly, what sort of dirt does she have on us?"

The three of them looked at one another before rapidly scrolling through the list in order to find their own. The first one they spotted was Ian's.

"This one isn't going to be that surprising - they're siblings!"

"Just check it to make sure."

Shinjiro did. On the top of the document, there was the exact same information that was provided on the Student IDs, while underneath were odd titbits of knowledge about Ian... _a surprisingly good cook...first song ever wrote wasn't popular because the singer was involved in a big scandal..._

"Gah!" Ian quickly took control and exited the document.

"So that's why it says you don't like scandals in your ID."

"You want to talk about it?"

"If I mention that singer's name, you'll disown me."

"Disow-- we aren't even related!"

"Anyway, I'm next." Shinjiro found his own document, which had very much the same layout. "Hmm, nothing embarrassing of mine in here." _Good at drawing...only writes Japanese in hiragana and katakana as a result of his lack of knowledge..._ "Tomoko, you interested?"

"Do I look interested? Now what was this real incriminating thing you wanted to share with us?"

Shinjiro groaned, exiting the folders. "All right, Little Miss Skeptic." Back on the homepage, he pointed at the SAISEI icon. "This just looks suspicious if you know what I mean."

Surprisingly, both of them seemed to share the sentiments, with Ian leaning in closer. "I may have learnt a lot of Japanese in the last years I've been with you," Ian said, "but I have never seen that word before."

"It means "revival", but still..."

"Let's try it." Shinjiro clicked on the icon, only to be met with the same password bar as before. "Well _that_ isn't suspicious at all."

Tomoko shoved him. "It could be some kind of special software that requires an account to access it."

"Well "special" is correct. Anything else that demands a passcode?"

"There was a button that must allow her to edit these documents. Maybe...nope, another password bar. Who are we even supposed to pass this on to?"

"Nobody," Tomoko slammed the lid closed. "If it is all a misunderstanding, then we'll all be in for it. If you _really_ want me to, then I'll tell Kirigiri about it when we're back at school. But for now, we leave it here, and leave it a secret."

_As if...I'm only keeping it quiet until it actually_ does _become a problem. Which it never will!_

"Why wasn't this here when we were shopping for Secret Santa?"

"Don't know, don't care. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be late."

"For what?"

 

* * *

 

Being forced to deal with her brother's delusions again, she was in fact almost made late for her session with Kiyotaka. After he offered to help with her extra training last year, she chose to take him up on the offer, only so she could get some extra focus time on kendo that she didn't get with Sakura's sessions. Also, if it meant she didn't have to try that godforsaken drink again...

With her (thoroughly washed) sports bottle under her arm, and her school gym clothes and tracksuit on, she rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, Chihiro answered the door in a green shirt, blue trousers and slippers.

"Ah, morning Fukuhara-san!"

"Morning Fujisaki-kun."

"Oi, is that Fukuhara?" Mondo appeared on the top of the stairs dripping wet, wearing only a towel round his waist and his pompadour half done. "Mornin'. _Kyoudai'_ s waiting in the garage for yer."

"Uh, right, thanks," she replied, trying to avoid looking at him while half naked.

"Just let us know if you need anything," Chihiro said, returning to her work.

"Thank you." She dropped her bag in the hallway and tried to find the right door to get to the garage - oddly enough, it was the first time she'd been to his house in the one and a bit years the two had been friends.

Upon finding it, Kiyotaka was the first thing she saw. He was pushing furniture and other things to the corners of the garage to clear some room, while holding two bokken under his arm.

"Morning Ishimaru-kun. Do you need a hand down here?"

“Good morning Fukuhara-kun! Yes please, only the coffee table.” Tomoko walked over to it and stood next to him, pushing the table the rest of the way across the room as Kiyotaka took the two bokken in his hands.

“Will this be enough space?” Despite the furniture having been moved, the garage still wasn’t the largest she’d ever seen. There was a sofa that had been moved, with a TV on the wall opposite, which were big enough as it was, but when you also took into account the fact that Mondo’s motorcycle was kept down there too…

“Naturally! Of course, there is an increased danger of bumping into furniture…or the wall…but we will have to make do with the space we’ve got!”

Tomoko tossed her bag onto the sofa, setting her bottle on the floor. “If you say so.”

“Well, shall we get started?”

...

Following an hour of the two friends sparring in the garage, with Kiyotaka going over the basic strikes with Tomoko and getting them to look right, as well as one five-minute break in the middle, both of them were slumped on the couch almost out of whatever drinks they’d had with them. Tomoko in particular had a collection of new bruises on her wrists. Fortunately, neither of them had gone for the throat, and both were protected from head strikes by the kendo helmet (and bike helmet in Tomoko’s case, due to the lack of equipment).

“Okay, maybe a handful more breaks next time.” Tomoko panted, wishing she hadn’t downed her whole drink.

“But I have to admit, your form is a vast improvement to last time! Yes, it was quite exhausting, but it was worth it!”

“I guess so, and maybe after a few more sessions I’ll be able to beat you for a change.” The fact that one of the matches lasted ten minutes before Kiyotaka finally won was enough to make Tomoko come back until she could beat him once. They picked up a bokken each and left the garage, walking into the kitchen. Mondo was sat on the worktop, now fully dressed and only just eating breakfast.

“How’d it go?” He asked, a spoonful of cereal in his mouth.

“Very good, _kyoudai_!”

“You got anything small in the house?”

“There’s some snacks in the kitchen. Help yourself if you’re hungry,” Chihiro called, not looking up from his laptop.

“Thank you,” Tomoko rooted through the drawers, taking note of the fact that Chihiro hadn’t moved from where he was sat. "Uh, what's Fujisaki-kun doing over there? Looks serious."

"He's been preparing for his exam for the past couple of weeks."

"Oh, damn I completely forgot about those!" Tomoko smacked her forehead, accidentally using the hand that was still holding the bokken, which left a vertical red line dead centre of her head. Kiyotaka and Mondo couldn't help but laugh, and once the sting subsided, neither could she.

"But anyway," Tomoko asked while rubbing the sore spot, "it must be big if you've been having to start it this early!"

"I'm programming something that hopefully everyone will be able to use once it's finished. I'll leave the rest as a surprise until then."

"Ooh, sounds exciting." A phone call from Shinjiro cut the conversation off there. "I think I better go, thanks again. Hello?"

"You won't believe the kind of info we've found on this thing! It has the stuff everyone likes from the school store! Is this woman a psychic or wh--"

"Oh, hey Tess. On your way back early, I see."

"Crap! Hide the laptop, Ian! And don't log out!"

Tomoko grinned as she heard the commotion on the other end of the line. "Sucker."


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief celebration of the twin's birthday, and Sierra engaging in more of her TD detective work.

With the new possibilities for the Date Tickets that had been revealed at the end of 2016, January of 2017 was the month where everyone wanted to use one. No matter what exactly it was. One of the most surprising ones came from Class 1, and conversations about them were happening in the middle of classes.

“Hey, where’s Gwen this morning?”

“She’s out by the beach with Bridgette and Leshawna. Apparently, the ticket things work for groups of three now.”

“But why the beach in January?”

“A better question,” Ian said, addressing Leon directly, “if you want to get together with Sayaka, why don’t you…oh, I dunno, USE A DATE TICKET?!”

“I don’t wanna jump into things, ya know?”

“You’re already friends! Suck it up!”

The conversation abruptly ended when a few heads turned to face them, including those of their teacher Kyoko, at the abnormally loud volume of Ian’s voice.

“Anyway,” Leon switched to whispering. “What kind of things can you even do with them. _Outside_ of the school, I mean.”

“Well you know about Gwen and the girls at the beach already. I heard that Sam and Chiaki had a gaming tournament at an arcade a few days ago.”

“But who won?”

“That’s the thing. Both of them refused to answer whenever someone asked about it.” Ian turned the page of his notebook. “Uh, what else…Gwen also went on a ‘not-date’ to go stargazing with Trent. There are a load of posters in Hagakure’s booth if you want to know more.”

“Okay, cool. So we’re having a look now, right?”

Ian just stared at him wide-eyed. “That is probably the fastest change of heart I’ve ever seen. Are you nervous about this or not?”

“Kirigiri!” Leon stood up from his seat, pulling Ian with him. “We’ll be back in a few! Thanks!”

“Hey, wait-- I never agreed to this!”

 

* * *

 

The next Saturday morning, Tomoko was expecting to have a lie-in. The date was January 21st, her and Shinjiro’s 19th birthday, so she didn’t want to be woken up too early. The sun hadn’t even started to leak through her windows, and it wasn’t even 7:30am, when she felt something shoving hard into her side.

“Hey.”

“…”

“Get up.”

“Nrrgh…stop…s’too early…”

“Tomoko!”

One final kick to her stomach, and she did sit up. Not to get out of bed, but to throttle the person who’d just come into her room, although she stopped short when she realised it was Shinjiro. He too was still in his pyjamas, holding a wrapped present under his arm.

“Happy birthday, sis.”

“Oh, happy birthday!” She reached under her bed to pull out a package of her own. “Did you have to give me rib damage just for that, though?”

“You know what this means, right?”

“The rib damage or something else?”

“Our birthday. We’re nineteen now, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, so?”

“And the legal drinking age in Ontario is…?”

“Nineteen?”

“Exactly!” He reached into his pyjama pockets and pulled out two small bottles of some kind of alcohol. “Snagged them out of Mr. Kizakura’s desk.”

Tomoko took one. “This feels kinda weird for me.”

“Why, because we’re only just nineteen? Or it’s early morning? Come on, I’m sure you’ve had a small one before.”

“Nope. The Japanese legal age is 20. Never had a drink in my life.”

“Oh, very different from me. Had small ones on special occasions here and there.”

“Lucky you. I’d never get away with that back home.”

“Anyway, to another year!” The twins clinked their bottles together.

…

As part of the celebrations, Tess and Ian decided to treat them to dinner at some fancy-ish restaurant in Toronto. As presents, Tess had got Shinjiro a steel glasses case and Tomoko a set of hand grips, both of which she’d clearly got from the school shop. Ian manged to nab the two of them alcohol-based gifts – a mojito kit for Tomoko, a giant bottle of wine for Shinjiro.

“How did you even manage to get a hold of that, by the way?”

“Leon. He said not to ask, and please don’t make me.”

As well as the aforementioned, Shinjiro had got a cake from DJ the day before, and yet more alcohol from Leon. As for Tomoko, the granola bar thing from Ibuki had now started becoming an annual tradition, but the yellow hoodie was a pleasant change from the norm. Granted, it was only in the mix because Ibuki had insisted on matching blue and red for her and Kitty respectively.

“On that note, he forced me to stand in the school store with him while he spent 20 minutes trying to read the posters behind Hagakure.”

“How come?” Tess asked. “Is he thinking of buying a Date Ticket for someone?”

“Yes.” Both boys answered in unison, as fast as possible.

“Any idea who for?”

“Nope!” Tomoko wanted to groan at how obvious they were both making things. Fortunately, she didn’t have to as a server came over with some drinks – mocktail, coffee, a wine and a cider.

“Well,” Tess picked up her mocktail, “happy nineteenth to the both of you!”

The three glasses and one mug clinked together, a few droplets spilling onto the tablecloth, before they all took sips. As they did so, there was a continuous buzzing from Tomoko’s phone in her hoodie pocket.

“I’m just going to the toilet quickly,” Tomoko said, setting her glass down and rising from her seat.

“Hurry back, or I may drink all of this!”

“Better not, you’re our designated driver.”

The bathrooms were empty save for one stall being occupied, meaning Tomoko could answer the call with no problem, but it cut out before she could even lay a hand on her phone. As the door closed, she reached into the pocket to pull it out and re-dial the number.

The only concern was the thing she was holding was most definitely not her phone. Unless her phone had become cotton in the last hour.

_Hold on a minute._

The mere discovery that her not-phone was in fact a pair of _red and black Harajuku-style panties_ caused her to let out a yelp unheard of for her, dropping them on the floor.

“What the hell, Ibuki?!” She backed away from them until her back was pressed against the sinks. After having a second thought, it was then that she changed from questioning why Ibuki’s underwear was in her present, but why it had taken so long for it to happen, given it was a tradition. Not one she knew well having left Japan years ago, but still…

“Tomoko? Did you have some kind of accident? And what’s with the hoodie in a place like this?”

“Wha--? Sierra, is that you?” The superfan emerged from the stall, a dark bakerboy hat covering her hair, as well as a pair of sunglasses and a black suit. “What’s with the outfit?”

“Detective work.”

“Detective…? You’re not…spying on our dinner, are you?”

“Not _yours_ …” Sierra bent over to pick up the underwear. “I’d hide this if I were you.” Adjusting her hat, she left the bathroom and returned to her table, Tomoko quickly snatching the panties off her and shoving them back in her pocket.

…

“It took you long enough! I was about to leave! Why did you need me for this anyway?”

“Sorry, I had a run in with someone from school.”

For some unknown reason, Sierra had chosen to bring Cody along with her to help with…whatever this detective work of hers was all about.

“So, did I miss anything between those two?”

“They just ordered a couple more drinks.”

The reason they were both there, it turns out, was to spy on a dinner between Heather and Alejandro for relationship gossip. However, despite how close the girls were (and yes, whenever Heather wasn’t with her group, she and Sierra often talked, having retained some semblance of a friendship from World Tour), she knew she’d never get straight answers from either, even if she just flat out asked.

On cue, a waiter showed up with two expensive cocktails, a stark contrast to the colas being drunk by Cody and Sierra.

“Now pass me the binoculars.”

“Why?”

Instead of answering, Sierra trained the view of the pocket-sized binoculars towards Alejandro’s pockets. Not only of his jacket, but his coat and the back pocket of his trousers.

“Sierra! What the hell?” Fortunately, it was Cody who noticed what she was doing. “We could get kicked out if you get spotted!”

“I’m an expert at this sort of thing.”

“Um…anyway, what the hell _are_ you looking for?”

“Come on, where is it? I can’t leave my fans in the dark like this!”

“Where’s… _what_?”

“It’s been nearly six years since World Tour! I wanna see the ring!”

“…what.”

…

Coming back from the restaurant, Tomoko went to unlock the door as Tess parked up her car, when she felt something under her foot.

“Oh god, please don’t let this be Ibuki’s panties again…”

Fortunately, it wasn’t. Instead, on the floor was a package wrapped in silver and red paper, which felt relatively soft. Opening it, she caught a white flannel shirt before it hit the floor. A note had been tucked into the pocket which read, in slightly scruffy handwriting:

_Sorry it’s been a while – hope the size is right? Oh yeah, happy birthday!_   
_\- A_

Tomoko grinned and rolled her eyes. “All these months, and only now you send me a message?”

Once she’d put the shirt away and got onto her bed, she scrolled through her phone until she found the right number.

“About time I heard from you again, Amy.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The date between Tomoko and Kiyotaka that Ibuki has been waiting for.

What with the increased popularity in the Date Tickets going into the New Year, it wasn’t long until a couple of new options was brought out: now, it was possible to bring multiple people with one ticket, albeit for slightly more money; also, tickets could also be bought for different people, rather than yourself.

And two people in particular were eager to take advantage of the latter.

…

_“Alright, everyone take your seats!” Inquisitively, Chisa looked up from her attendance record. “Huh, Ishimaru-kun and Fukuhara-san? You aren’t meant to be here right now.”_

_“What?” The two shared a look of confusion._

_“From what it says here, you should have collected a Date Ticket from me by now.”_

_“But I didn’t purchase one of those!”_

_“Neither did I. And I thought you couldn’t by one for someone…else…” Tomoko trailed off when she heard whistling coming from the seats next to and behind her. Kitty was hidden behind her book, while Ibuki glanced in the general direction of her old classmates._

_“It doesn’t say specifically what you can do with it, and I’m afraid I can’t cancel it.”_

_“Why not? I would much rather stay in class for today, thank you.”_

_“Sorry, but those are the rules apparently. Anyway,” she set the record down and her normal demeanour returned, “have fun you two!”_

_Hesitantly, Tomoko and Kiyotaka stood up from their desks, looking back over at one another, with the former leaning down to her two friends._

_“You two…are going to pay for this,” she muttered._

_“We already did,” Kitty replied, stifling laughter while Ibuki punched her in the shoulder, equally as amused by the situation._

…

And so, here the two friends were, stood awkwardly in the kitchen having opted for the safest Date bet – a picnic. Oddly enough, there was a basket in one of the cupboards ready for someone to use, as well as a number of Tupperware boxes and bento boxes. Tomoko couldn’t help but notice a couple of the yellow ones from the first day they all got here.

She also couldn’t help but think that the vast amounts of food that were there weren’t only for when Teruteru made lunch.

“Is there anything in particular you want?” Despite the awkwardness of the situation that neither of them had asked for, it still didn’t detract from the fact that they were friends with the morning to themselves. _Not lovers, thank you Ibuki and Kitty!_

“I’m not that fussed over what we eat. You’re the better cook out of the two of us, so whatever you would rather prepare for us!”

“Okay then.” Cupboard after cupboard was opened in attempts to find some sort of food that Tomoko could make into something. She pulled some bread out and set it onto a countertop, all the while, pondering.

Despite the two of them technically being considered ‘friends’, it had occurred to Tomoko on multiple occasions that she honestly didn’t know an incredible amount about him. Sure, she knew about his family history already, and he knew about hers – not to mention Satoko – but what about hobbies? His old Hope’s Peak life? Things he likes? If anything outside of studying.

Glancing back over, he himself was rummaging for a few food items, eventually stumbling across Teruteru’s supply he used whenever he was on lunch duty.

_Gods, think of_ something _to talk about! This silence is getting ridiculous._

“So, how’s that tutoring job going?” _Nice one, genius._

“Oh, very well! Shi’s making a lot of progress in her studies!”

“And does _she_ have a name?”

“Shi _is_ her name. Or rather, I feel it may be short for something else.”

“Ah, right. Either way, sounds sinister in my opinion.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Hm? Oh, uh, just curious. You’ve never really mentioned it, that’s all.”

“And what about you, Fukuhara-kun? How are your studies progressing?”

“Uh, good, I guess? Even though we don’t have those kinds of exams anymore.”

“That is still no excuse to be slacking off! Despite the nature of the Hope’s Peak curriculum, no matter the environment, a good student should be keeping on top of their studies!”

_Even though I said it was going well._ “Yeah, I get it.”

“Need I remind you of what you told me back in our first year?”

“No need, and that was more to do with my job than anything else, not slacking off.”

“…right. Of course, it slipped my memory. My apologies, Fukuhara-kun!” Kiyotaka went into a deep bow.

“I-it’s okay. It can’t be helped, given those are your ideals.”

“That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask this. Exactly what did your job entail?” Kiyotaka set two tins full of some different food items onto the worktop.

“The job kind of changed with each different series, since I was kind of young during season one. At first it was testing equipment for challenges – you know, paintball guns and the like – a bit of maintenance work here and there. Then it was actually testing some of the challenges themselves, fact checking during World Tour. From season five onwards, I started cleaning the bathrooms as well as the other things.”

“And…you were _unpaid_ for that?!”

“That _is_ the role of an intern – no pay.”

“Well, yes, it is, but surely you should receive some sort of reward for such a tedious task!” He cleared his throat. “So you did the job for every season? And an extra during one summer?”

Tomoko laughed. “You’d think I’d be sick of it by that point, huh?” As she continued talking, she started preparing the food for them. “Yeah, all six Total Drama series spanned over four years, with the first two taking place within two days of one another. There were rather long breaks between the later series, too. But the job for Ridonculous Race was a little different.”

“How so?”

“I had to be one step ahead of the teams to demo some of the tasks last minute. On some occasions-- ow, crap,” she paused as the knife lightly grazed her thumb. “On some occasions I even had to do extra filming.”

“Really? Wow, that is an awful lot more than I expected of you. I shall have to go and watch this…Ridonculous Race to see for myself!”

Tomoko started running her thumb under the tap. “Have you seen any of the series?”

“A little bit. _Kyoudai_ insisted I start watching more television once we moved here. You may already know this but I spent all my time studying in Japan.”

“No TV or games _at all?_ Wow.”

As the two of them continued to work, they continued talking about things like their lives before coming to NHPA, the kinds of foods they liked as they were packed into a picnic basket they’d found in a cupboard, and anything else that came to mind, until it was about an hour before everyone was let out for lunch.

“Okay,” Tomoko dropped the last item into the basket, closing it and putting away a handful of the cans & packets. “That’s everything. Now to find a good spot and--”

“Um, Fukuhara-kun? I hate to ruin the “date” but…” Pointing out the windows, the sky was now a gloomy dark grey, with rain falling heavily.

“Oh, great. Thanks for nothing, Ibuki.” Tomoko sighed and dropped the basket onto a table. “What now? Do we just go back to class?”

The two stopped to think for a moment, and if she was being honest, Tomoko was surprised that Kiyotaka didn’t deny it there and then.

“Or I guess we could always…eat it in here?”

“Good idea! It would be a shame to let all this food go to waste, especially after you put so much effort into preparing it!”

“Actually, it wasn’t that rough. And you’re fine with that?”

“Of course! After all, somebody paid valuable money for the two of us to spend quality time together!”

Agreeing with the sentiment, she felt it was a better idea not to mention that it was only five-odd dollars, as well as the real reason _why_ it was done.

Pulling up chairs at one of the smaller circular tables by the window, the two started to converse once more, finding it a little easier than before.

“Must have been fun eating while looking at this back at your old school.”

“Well, for a time there was an artificial background that was mounted on our window. I think it was made by Fujisaki-kun, but I can’t quite remember.”

“How come? A storm or something? Or maybe part of Fujisaki-kun’s exam?”

“That I’m afraid I have also forgotten. But I agree, it was more pleasant than watching the rain! Or snow, whatever it may have been.”

Before they knew it, the bell for lunch wasn't long from going, and most of the food was still untouched. When the cold air started flowing into the cafeteria, Kiyotaka prepared some tea for the two of them, the conversations long continuing.

“But how did a school as great as Hope’s Peak run out of funding? And why not send every class to Canada instead of just two?”

“Oooh! I knew it would pay off!”

Both turned towards the door where Kitty was stood, phone in hand, Ibuki running up behind her.

“Why are you here? The lunch bell hasn’t…”

*RIIIIIIING*

“…gone…yet…”

“Now it has,” she smirked, taking the seat beside her, with Ibuki slotting in on the other side.

“Hey, extra food!” Ibuki reached in and started digging into a sandwich. “Hmmm…good but nothing tops DJ-chan’s!”

“Thank you, but I’d appreciate it if you left--”

“Hey bro! How’s the date going?”

“Oowada-kun…”

Mondo and Chihiro slotted in on either side of Kiyotaka.

“It went very well – I’ve come to learn much more about Fukuhara-kun! Thank you, Mioda-kun!”

Ibuki grinned in response, as another hand reached from behind her and grabbed another sandwich. Adding to the awkwardness of the situation, Leon, Ian, Sayaka and Shinjiro took the remaining seats at the table, as more and more of the student body filed in. “Alright! Thanks for the lunch, sis!”

“You forgot yours again, didn’t you?”

“Can you believe I chose to hang out with them?”

“Oh quit throwing us under the bus just to get a girlfr-- UGH! Let…go…bast…”

“Kuwata-kun! Release your grip on Shinjiro-kun’s throat this instant!”

“Calm down, Kuwata-kun.”

Tomoko sighed, taking a bite into her sandwich.

_One minute…that’s all it takes around here, huh?_

 

* * *

 

“Yep, things are going fantastic!” With business starting to run a lot more smoothly since the introduction of the latest bonding scheme for the teens, Chris had been pushed to the side for the most part, yet still had a say in different management choices and providing financial aid. The partnership he held with Byakuya had unfortunately (for him) still running strong, and today was one of the days they were meant to be having a meeting about…well, whatever Byakuya felt the need to complain about.

“…”

“Oh come on, you have to agree with me on this!” Byakuya still didn’t respond, instead reading a book and occasionally taking a sip of his civet coffee. “Whatever.”

The sound of a dialling tone brought Byakuya out of his book. He reached into his pocket at the same time Chris reached for the phone in the room, stopping short noticing the tones in fact came from the affluent progeny’s mobile.

“Yes?” His response came in Japanese, which slightly concerned Chris. If it was someone from NHPA, they’d talk to him in person about it, meaning it could only be coming from the other Hope’s Peak.

“What? Again?! But how was that possible?...right…yes, I understand. I’ll be sure to pass it on. Thank you.” Byakuya pocketed his mobile, a grim expression on his face, taking a while to notice the look of concern Chris was giving him.

“That was Munakata.”

“What happened? More things going on at that school?”

“This is _serious_.”

“Okay, okay. But would you tell me what the heck is going on?”

He adjusted his glasses. “It’s happened again. Hope’s Peak Academy was the victim of another attack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone has a good Christmas!


	17. Chapter 17

Since the call that came through to the Neo Hope’s Peak, there had been the odd disruption in classes, what with all the teachers being frequently called to Makoto’s office. Even Hagakure, who only had something to do when it involved Date Tickets, was away from his little booth more often. On one particular day, Valentine’s Day, the staff chose to close the school down for the whole day, and each person within the Fukuhara-Costello household was spending it differently.

Because Kiyotaka was unable to attend class today, he’d invited Tomoko over for more kendo practice, which was overseen by his two friends this time. Once again, they sparred with Mondo’s biker helmets on, while said biker cheered on his bro. In the meantime, Chihiro sat and continued working on the same program as last time.

Following seven sparring matches, six of which were losses on Tomoko’s part, more bruises were beginning to line Tomoko’s arms. Fortunately, she was able to put up more of a fight this time, due to more breaks between sessions…not that it made a difference.

“Well played again, bro! Seven to one!”

“Thank you oh so much for remaining impartial in all this.”

“Alright, who wants a drink?” Chihiro closed his laptop and walked past the three of them towards the kitchen.

“I do!”

“Sure.”

“If you don’t mind.” A few seconds later, they heard the kettle starting to boil. While Kiyotaka was mopping up the sweat on his face with a towel, Tomoko glanced over at Mondo.

“So,” she pulled her helmet off, “I’ve been doing this for a while with Ishimaru-kun, and honestly I think it’s helped quite a bit. But I was wondering if maybe we could try sparring too?”

“Why? You don’t seriously think you can beat me?”

“Well, no. Just to pick up some extra tips from another discipline.”

Mondo thought on her idea. “I guess it won’t do any harm.”

“Also, if you wouldn’t mind, go full force. Well, without causing any serious injury. I heard you knocked out Naegi-kun on the first day of school in Japan with a single punch.”

“Okay then.” Mondo set his coat on the back of a chair, while Kiyotaka put the kendo things back. “Since you asked for it, no holdin’ back, yeah?”

“Fine by me.”

“Just don’t go too over the top, _kyoudai_. I do not want to have to call for an ambulance.”

“Yeah, won’t be goin’ that far.”

At that moment, Chihiro came back into the garage with a tray of four tea cups. “I’ll leave these on the coffee table. Uh, did I miss something?”

“Fukuhara-kun and _kyoudai_ are about to begin a sparring session.”

Nodding, Chihiro instead kept hold of the tray to ensure they didn't spill. In the makeshift mat space, Mondo and Tomoko stared each other down for a few seconds, until Mondo flew towards her.

As they jumped into the fight, Tomoko opted to avoid going for any hits for now since she knew they wouldn’t make much of an impact, instead dodging and blocking each punch coming from Mondo. Despite a couple of glancing blows here and there, avoiding any further bruising seemed quite easy for her. When it started to look like Mondo was tiring, Tomoko ducked down and went for a sweep. Mondo lost his balance and stumbled back, but managing to remain standing, with Tomoko using his disorientation to land a few punches – two to his body and a few others on the arms (which would have landed if Mondo hadn’t been launching more).

All the while, Kiyotaka and Chihiro watched on, impressed at the lack of damage their friend had done to his opponent.

Eventually, the winning streak…drawing streak?...was broken when Mondo got a firm grip on a fist aimed at his face, pushing his foot into the back of her knee to get her on the floor. Within a second, he was throwing her over his shoulder, only just getting a grip on her shirt to prevent an impact when he noticed she was about to land on the coffee table.

“Oops…”

Kiyotaka took one of Tomoko’s arms to help her onto her feet, frantically alternating between asking her if she was alright and berating Mondo for performing such an extreme move. In the meantime, Chihiro handed her the last cup of tea (still warm).

“Are you alright?”

“All good, but I have to say,” she watched as the yelling between the two men escalated, “it was the last way I expected to be spending Valentine’s Day.”

 

* * *

 

With Shinjiro being left alone for most of the day, Tomoko, Ian and Tess all thought he’d be stuck in the house for hours. Oddly enough, this was not the case.

His schoolbag emptied of all books and supplies, instead filled with DVDs and sketchpads, he’d been invited to the house of two people he would never had imagined he’d be welcome…the home belonging to Komaru Naegi and Toko Fukawa. The only reason being because Komaru had wanted to see him for some reason.

Going into this, he was expecting things to be neat and organised around the house, as was expected of Toko, and he was spot on. There was a lot of wooden furniture, and the colour purple filled every wall, with bookshelves in most walls. Removing his shoes at the door, he decided to have a quiet look around, knowing full well how Toko may react if she saw him doing so. The main room had a relatively large TV and more purple on the leather seats. A coffee table sat in the middle, a small pink rose in a vase on top. An array of paintings, all of which were in gold frames, covered the walls. The shelves inside that room were mostly self-help books, old novels and even…holy crap, was that French? Toko knew French too?

The kitchen was perfectly cleaned, with some kind of sweet smell he couldn’t identify coming from it. Attached to it was the dining room, which was stockpiled with sheets of paper. Toko sat at the table, writing at a speed Shinjiro had never seen before. Waiting for her to finish the page she was on, he knocked on the door of the dining room.

“Morning Fukawa. Any idea where Komaru is?”

Toko looked up. “Oh, you. Outside in the other study.” She immediately returned to her writing.

“Thanks.” Once he was out of earshot, he added in a muttered “delightful as ever, I see.”

Said study actually turned out to be more of a garage converted into a den – typical that Toko didn’t refer to it as such. Coming from inside, Shinjiro recognised the sound of different anime soundtracks in the background. Opening the already ajar door, he was met with a blast of hot air. He was surprised to see the garage lined wall to wall with manga style drawings of different locations and character models, with Komaru sat at a desk sketching even more of them. Another bookshelf was right next to him as he came in, all of them holding such titles like _The Bomb Inside Her_ , or _Tornado Sentai…Spinranger_.

“Uh, Komaru?”

“Hm?” She looked up. “Oh, Shinjiro-san! Come and sit down!” She pointed to a chair behind where she sat, which Shinjiro did, eyes not leaving the vast number of drawings around him.

“Did you draw all of these?”

“Yep! I’ve dreamt of being a manga author since middle school, and these are just to prompt some kind of idea for future ones.”

“These are really cool! Naegi never mentioned you could draw like this.” Shinjiro started looking over all the different sheets of paper. “Have you written any yet?”

“I’m in the process of writing one. All the ones…there,” she leaned over and pointed out a bunch next to the door, “are sketches that are part of my current one. The title’s a work in progress. It’s a high school drama-slice of life _shojo_ about a group of five girls attending St. Koa Girl’s Academy, a school with 300 years of history and sports. It’s always on the TV due to its fame and has a buffet style cafeteria.”

“Woah, you put a load of effort into the backstory behind it.”

“It’s how I imagined my senior high school would have been. The character’s even wear my old uniform.” Sure enough, the sailor fuku she used to wear was hung up behind her.

“ _Imagined_ how it would be? What does that mean? I thought you attended high school before coming here.”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

Shinjiro adjusted his glasses. “I appreciate you showing me this, but what exactly did you need me for? Sure, I’ve seen many a _shojo_ anime in my lifetime, but it isn’t exactly my forte.”

“It’s about my next one.” Komaru stood up and pointed to a wall near the back, with more fantasy-esque designs. And there was one thing Shinjiro noticed quite quickly.

“Why do a few of these designs look…familiar?”

“Some of them are based off of my brother’s classmates. But anyway, once my current one’s been completed, I want to start writing a fantasy manga! You know, magic, the supernatural, those sorts of things. And because you’re somewhat of an expert on anime, I was wondering if you could offer some ideas? Maybe point me in the direction of a few places of reference?”

Shinjiro had started rummaging through his bag before she’d even finished, emptying out DVD after DVD onto the table.

“For the record, you can’t borrow these – I’ve already promised them to Kuwata. But for a fantasy series I’d point you to these two in particular.” And so the rapid-fire fantasising began. “See, these two are different because in this one everyone has some kind of power and a healing ability even though it can eventually run out, but in this one only 10% of the entire population can use any kind of magic. I’d recommend this one if you want to know how to write a great ensemble cast of characters, and some of the powers are pretty damn cool. Oh yeah and going back to this one again, the creativity is unbelievable, well so long as you understand it, and have you seen the weapons?! I will love you forever if you put in a weapon as cool as some of these! And these two work great for a high school set--”

“Okay, okay, slow down,” Komaru nervously laughed at Shinjiro’s sudden burst of enthusiasm. “Why not show me some of them online? I have an account.”

The anime fanatic cleared his throat. “Right. Sorry. Sure thing.”

…

After a couple hours of binging the pilots of each series Shinjiro had recommended, Komaru had accumulated a pile of sketches rivalling the height of Toko’s. A vibrating in his pocket caused Shinjiro to take out his phone and check the time.

“That was Tomoko. I better go. Oh, and if you could point me in the direction of your _shojo_ manga when it gets published, I would not be disappointed. And the other fantasy one, now I think about it, but that won’t be for a while by the looks of things.”

“Will do! And thanks for all the help!”

“Oh yeah, and I meant to say, I had no idea Fukawa knew French.”

“What?”

“The books. In your main room?”

“Oh, those? Toko-chan doesn’t own those. Or that violin over there.” She pointed to some music equipment in the back he hadn’t noticed before. “And neither do I.”

“Then…did Genocider steal them from her victims or something? I dunno how this whole serial killer split personality thing works but…”

“Those belong to Byakuya Togami-san.”

“Ah, so _Fukawa_ stole them, not her personality.”

“No, he lives here. Hm, is something wrong with your stomach?”

No, there wasn’t. But the look on Shinjiro’s face could have fooled anyone. “ _How_. Did that happen? How did _BYAKUYA TOGAMI_ agree to living with _**TOKO FUKAWA**_?!”

“Beats me.” She turned back to her sketches perfectly calm, when something occurred to her. “How come you want a copy of the _shojo_ manga?”

“It’s…for a friend. Yeah, for a friend.”

“Well, okay then!”

…

Even after having left the Fukawa-Komaru-Togami house, he still didn’t let go of the fact that the ever-joyous Byakuya Togami was living in a house with his stalker hybrid of Yuno Gasai, Sierra and Edward Scissorhands.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of this chapter has subtle references to Super Danganronpa Another 2, a fan game created by Linuj. I really recommend you check it out!

Following on from the way they spent Valentine’s Day – at the arcade which had been put in this year – Ian had realised the best way to get Leon and Sayaka to spend time together without turning into a blushing wreck at a moment’s notice was having himself and Tess there too. He still wasn’t fond of him being there as something of a third wheel.

So, he took it upon himself to decide to arrange more days out for the four of them. Tess was actually starting to grow on him more. And for some reason, Leon wanted to go back to the same place as three weeks ago.

“You know, spending the day at a dodgy arcade wasn’t the way I wanted to spend Valentine’s Day,” Tess said.

“It’s not like you had anyone in the first place. Okay, what is with these weird characters?”

Playing an arcade game very much like one from a casino, Monomono Slot, Leon wasn’t having an awful lot of luck. From the last time, they’d learned that the main type of coin you could win for the time being were those tacky Chris Coins introduced for the Date Tickets and buying those presents. So after blowing $100 on them, he’d lost nearly three quarters on that one game.

“I feel like I’ve seen the characters before,” Sayaka said. “Remember a few places at the summer festival had similarly designed characters?”

“Well, I think it’s more to do with the eye. Even Junko appears to like it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Uhh…” Ian thought it better not to mention that he saw Junko’s weird thong before he’d even started his first day. Granted, it was accidentally, and only because it was part of Tomoko’s job, but regardless… “Tomoko told me.”

“Whatever, I give up with this one.” Leon stepped away from the machine, walking towards a large driving game entitled Outlaw Run. In the meantime, Sayaka tugged on Tess’ arm.

“What’s wrong? You seem a little quiet all of a sudden.”

“It’s nothing. Just…video games aren’t my thing.”

“Well, why not play one together? This one was fun last time,” she pulled her in the direction of another game – Salmon Fishing. “See, a fish order appears at the bottom, and you have to pick the right one. The twist is the fish are all in silhouette, only flashing in their real colours every few seconds.”

“Sounds more thought-based than the other ones. Okay, I’ll have a round.”

Instead of the Power Ranger bears on the gambling machine, this one only had the Miaya bunny in the bottom left corner. Each time the fish showed their colours for a second at a time, Tess was able to complete up to five fish at a time.

“Woah, good eye!” Ian, getting bored of Leon crashing into more than a few people in the driving game, moved over to look at Tess’ gaming.

“Thanks,” she went a little red. “Oh, what’s the time, by the way?”

“Why?”

“I have practice for a production today. After the one at the summer festival, a few people wanted to do another one. Ian, you still okay to come along?”

“If you need more male cast members, then sure.”

“Anyway it’s…12:59.”

Tess let out a sudden scream, noting the time. “Sorry Maizono-san! Gotta go!” She grabbed Ian’s arm and high-tailed it out of the arcade.

“What? There’s a rehearsal _right now_? Wait, Leon won’t survive the date without me!”

“Make it up to him later!”

“Alright!” Leon got out of his seat. “Two rounds without hitting a single…Ian?”

Once they were out of the way of the arcade, they slowed to more of a walk, with Ian starting to ask more about the production.

“So what exactly _is_ the production? And don’t I need to audition?”

“Well, it was a tough choice between quite a few – in the end we went for Be More Chill.”

“Oh, that one. I know it.”

“And in terms of auditioning, everyone requested I try and get you involved after they saw you as JD at the school festival. Alejandro thought we needed more male actors just in case.”

“Alejandro’s the director? Oh, this is going to be fun.”

…

“Sorry I’m late everyone! What did I miss?”

The remaining actors involved sat around the gymnasium, every head turning when they came through the door. After a microsecond, a handful of group members burst into song – specifically, _What Did I Miss_ from Hamilton.

“ _Virginia my home sweet home, I wanna give you a kiss…_ ”

Tess ended it by blowing a kiss in Topher’s direction, the members involved bursting into laughter at the end.

“Nothing really. And I assume Ian’s here to take part?”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks for…wanting me, I guess?”

Alejandro stood up and approached him, script in hand. “So, you’re in the role of the SQUIP, is that fine?”

He glanced over the cast details in the script. “Sure, of course. Even though I look nothing like Keanu Reeves.”

It was then that Ian looked around everyone else in the gym. Assistant director and understudy Heather stayed where she and Alejandro had been previously. Sadie was helping Katie with sorting out costume measurements, currently on Justin (the role of Jake). The Imposter (Mr Heere and Mr Reyes) stood behind, apparently offering some of his own SHSL Imposter disguise items as part of the wardrobe for the production. Ibuki and Ella (two extras) had caught Tess’ attention (Brooke) and the three were chatting away. Mike and Ezekiel (Jeremy and Michael – apparently, Ezekiel had a hidden singing talent) were going over some of their lines with final extra Cody filling in for any missing characters, while Dakota was teaching Izzy (Chloe and Jenna) some of the dance moves in a later routine. The final two lead actors Sammy and Topher (Christina and Rich) appeared to be getting along quite well in the corner. Not in that way, pervs.

“ _Bueno_.”

“Also for the record, you don’t seem all that happy to be here?”

“Heather signed up to be part of it, and everyone begged her to get me involved with it.”

“And you just wen--” Ian was cut off as Alejandro blew a whistle, attracting everyone’s attention.

“Are we getting on with this or not?” He pocketed it again, turning back to Ian. “It’s the only way to get them to be quiet.”

“Right," Izzy stood up. "Izzy’s not needed for a few scenes. Who wants something from Ruruka’s place?”

“No can do,” Mike said. “The shop’s been closed for weeks. Even Kitty isn’t being let in.”

“How come?”

“I heard she’s pregnant, so all the quirks that come with it mean she can’t do any confection…ing.”

“Ruruka’s pregnant?!”

“Also she hasn’t been in her shop for a few days,” Dakota added. “Albeit for a different reason. Neither has her emo blacksmith boyfriend. Husband? Whatever.”

Ezekiel peered through the gym door to the outside. “Hey yo, isn’t that her now?”

Justin joined him over there. “Yeah, looks like it.”

“What’s that all about, eh?”

“Hey, that man with the bull mask. Wasn’t he at the exam last year?”

“The metal limbed guy too.”

“Don’t they have their own school they need to run?”

Before too long, nearly everyone in this small group had crowded round the door, trying to get a better idea of what was going on and seeing who else they could spot, until the sound of a whistle blowing brought everyone’s attention back.

“Everyone, can we please return to rehearsing? You were the ones who pushed me into this after all.”

The various cast members murmured their apologies before heading up to the stage.

As the required actors made their way to the stage, Ian nudged his sister. “At least we aren’t watching Leon failing in love.”

 

* * *

 

The fact that it had been three years since every Future Foundation head were together was a good thing, given there had been nothing serious enough to warrant such an event.

Until today.

With twelve of the fourteen branch leaders (including Makoto and Byakuya) crowded into the headmaster’s office, they were relatively stuffed for space. Kyosuke sat at Makoto’s desk, holding the most superiority over the others, with Chisa and Juzo behind him. Ruruka was in one of the more comfortable chairs, Sonosuke and Seiko on either side; Makoto, Kyoko and Byakuya sat together off to the side; Kizakura leaned against the back wall drinking from his decanter, Ryota stood beside him looking more than a little uncomfortable; Daisaku, Gozu and Tengan (the former head) also sat near the back; and Miaya was directly in the middle, with nowhere else to go.

“I assume all of you know why you’ve been called here,” Kyosuke said. After the events of the Final Killing Game, he had been handed the leadership of Future Foundation while still leading Branch 2, in lieu of re-appointing Tengan, on the off chance the truth should suddenly come out. In the meantime, Tengan was still the leader of Branch 1 but with less responsibilities.

“Once again, we are faced with the downfall of Hope’s Peak Academy, the origins of which remain unknown currently. Unlike last time, we chose to evacuate all the students from the school, lest history repeat itself. A handful of the students were safely brought to a Future Foundation safe zone, and we have some of our members there with them to ensure no further danger. However, as we know from last time, it doesn’t mean the problems will end.”

Every present member remained silent as Kyosuke continued.

“Naturally, with Hope’s Peak destroyed, the staff members will return to Future Foundation to work on the problem – those being myself, Juzo, and some others. Gozu and Tengan shall do the same.” He paused to look around the room. “Because many of you are posted over here now, there isn’t a lot we can do without disturbing classes. Therefore…Chisa, Kizakura, Kirigiri, Gekkogahara, Naegi and Togami, you will continue working here as if everything is fine. It wouldn’t do to panic the student body. Given Ando’s current condition, it would be better for her and Izayoi to remain here. As for Kimura, Bandai and Mitarai, it’s your decision.”

There were quiet noises of affirmation among the members. Before letting anyone leave, Kyosuke spoke again. “Are there any questions?”

Miaya quickly got to typing, with the Usami AI talking within a few seconds. “You said only a handful of students were evacuated. Who were they?”

“We were successful in evacuating classes 79-A and 79-B – those taught by Ootori and Asakawa. The remaining classes in the talent course were either killed or escaped by themselves, but there’s no real way to work out the numbers. As for the general course, we think that most of them were killed, which won’t bode well for our public image.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If word gets out to the masses that Hope’s Peak – an academy now run by Future Foundation – apparently let the general course students die while saving the talented ones, we may lose a lot of support from the public.”

“You wouldn’t suppose,” Tengan stood, “this is the work of the SHSL Despair again?”

He’d spoken the query nobody had dared to put forward.

Kyosuke sighed. “We cannot rule it out as a possibility, but it’s difficult to see how. Junko Enoshima, her sister and the former Remnants are all at this academy, and no doubt one of the members stationed here would have noticed if they’d gone missing. Meaning the only other plausible cause would be a Despair fanatic. We’ll ensure that those evacuated are questioned about it.”

“But what if it’s not a Hope’s Peak student?” Juzo spoke for the first time. “It could be those four kids for all we know. The ones the therapist insisted we take in.”

“Hey! I was only trying to do my job!”

“Hell, I wouldn’t rule out that Hijirihara kid in my branch. The kid who up and left with another member.”

“True, but both Hijirihara and his colleague Asano have been missing for years. Zero sightings from anyone.”

“Something needs to be done soon! What if there’s another killing game – just look what happened with Ootori and his--”

“We’ll have to look into it.”

Ruruka groaned, from annoyance rather than her condition. “Well that’s just great. No clue over who did this…what are we all meant to do now?”

“We wait. That’s the only thing we can do…for now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: the Asakawa mentioned is another OC introduced in the last story; and as previously mentioned, Ootori is a reference to SDRA2.  
> Information on the FF and Hope's Peak structure should be uploaded soon on my side work.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day out with an old friend takes a turn for the worst...at least, in Tomoko's case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the best chapter I've written in a while, but whatever. I want to get into as much of a regular schedule as possible.

Due to spending so many outings in Toronto, and nobody living outside of the school area during class time, Tomoko had forgotten that there were people who didn’t live that locally. Hell, a couple of people didn’t even live in Canada! So it came as a surprise when for their overdue meet-up, Amy had told Tomoko to travel an hour away to Brampton. This had been the only day she could meet her, since Shinjiro was meeting with their aunt and uncle, Ian was with Trent at some music festival, Ibuki had dragged her two roommates to a rock concert, and Tess was doing god knows what with her friends.

Getting off the bus near to the local city centre, she paused to look for Amy. She wasn’t waiting for her at the stop, nor was she further down the street. Confused, having arrived at the right time, she made a move to pull out her phone when she heard a deafeningly loud squeal from inside a nearby shop.

“TOMOKO!!”

Dropping the bag she was holding, she essentially tackled her to the floor, Tomoko only just managing to stay stood up.

“Heeeyyy, Amy…could you get off? We’re in public. And why’s you’re hair so wet?”

“Just went to the local water park before coming up here.”

“By yourself? That’s not sad at all.”

The two girls couldn’t help but giggle and hug – a gesture that two years ago, Tomoko would have thought to be an impossibility.

“And for the record, I wasn’t by myself.”

"So, what exactly did you have planned for today? Because a water park would have sounded cool."

“Dinner out somewhere. A bit of a late birthday celebration. At the only place, unfortunately, where I could get a table."

"Unfortunately?"

...

"Darwin's Food Safari?"

The girls shuddered. "Just being here brings back haunting memories."

"Well, the drinks are good." Tomoko had a smoothie, while Amy had a large looking mocktail. "As is the variety."

"True." She took a mouthful, nodding in contempt. "So, what do you know?"

"Well, where to begin? I am part of a small group of advocates for LeoSaya..."

"Um, once more?"

"Leon and Sayaka in a relationship."

"Ohh, so a shipping community?"

"Near enough. Not really in my case." Tomoko took another sip of her drink. "Continuing...Tess is back with a way nicer attitude, and it turns out I have an allergy to protein powder. Well, more like an intolerance."

"How'd you figure that out?"

"Long story short, I tried some of Sakura's protein coffee and threw my guts up all night."

"Ouch." Amy looked through the menu. "I guess that means you can't be near Lightning that long."

Tomoko laughed. "It's not like I ever was before. And anyway, I had it checked and it's only a problem when ingested."

“And…how’s everyone else doing? Well, not _everyone_ …” Amy cast a glance at the statue behind her of the cow holding a tray, which looked disturbingly similar to Sugar. “I have a good enough idea about some of them already.”

“Good. No more…” she cleared her throat, “… _accidents_ this year. Honestly, the only ‘drama’ that’s going on around the school is positive. So I’m expecting Chris to make a move sooner or later.”

“Even though it isn’t being televised anymore.”

“Oh, so it isn’t. A few people still had their doubts. But yeah, this year he added in the ability for us to leave classes to go on dates. Despite all this, though, there’s still a bit of a downer mood.”

“How so?”

“I dunno, things at the school are kinda weird nowadays. Since the school got the Hope’s Peak name, the rules changed so we didn’t have to attend classes…did I tell you about that at the festival?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Although I thought that only applied to students, for a while now the teachers haven’t been showing up. That, or they’ve been too busy with other things to teach us. A few of the students seem kinda weird now.”

“Wasn’t that always the case?”

“Meh, I guess. But the people you wouldn’t _expect_ to be like that.”

“Weird, how?”

“Like…well, remember Peko? She tends to act a little awkward around Mukuro, who she appeared to form a good friendship with. In class too, Ms. Yukizome looks awfully awkward when she talks with Chiaki. When she’s there, that is.”

“Who?”

“Oh, one of the teachers. She’s probably the friendliest and most cheerful, but of course isn’t without her quirks. Somebody in our class spent a day off because they were down about something, and she went to their house in order to bring them to school.”

“That sounds like it could get annoying.”

“According to Chiaki, something similar happened to her old class in Japan. And I thankfully haven’t had to deal with it yet.” Tomoko went for her drink. “Anyway, what about you? What have you been up to since leaving? I don’t think you ever told me.”

“Oh, uh, you know, college.”

“…”

“…”

“That’s it? Nothing interesting?”

“Well, when compared to the Neo Hope’s Peak, not really. I mean I kept up with cheerleading on a college team, made a few new friends…okay, just people who’ll acknowledge me…yeah, nothing interesting.” Amy drummed her fingers on the table. “A few too many people still recognise me from Pahkitew.”

As two plates were dropped onto their table, Amy chucked a fry into her mouth.

“But hey, enough boring college talk. Is everything okay with your boyfriend?”

Tomoko paused, her fork in mid-air. “Uh, boyfriend?”

“Yeah, you haven’t been talking about him at all today. Did you break up or something?”

“…I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

“Then, who was Kitty talking about at the festival?”

“Ugh,” Tomoko set her fork down, muttering to herself. “Ishimaru-kun. Damn it, Kit.”

“ _Ishimaru-kun_? Wasn’t that Taka?”

“Yeah, it is. He’s fine, by the way. Still top of our class, and he’s got a job tutoring this girl. I think she’s a year older than most of us, but I don’t hear much about her.”

Amy sniggered. “Jealous.”

“What? I’m not jealous.”

“Don’t try and hide it, Tomo.”

“Tomo?”

“Why else would you have mentioned it if you weren’t jealous?”

“ _You’re_ the one who asked how he was doing. And that can’t be the only reason why you think that.”

“What could the other explanation be for telling me that?”

“It’s _not_ a romantic relationship, purely work based. Besides, have you _met_ Ishimaru?”

“True, but things change.”

“Not always.”

“I mean he’s your closest male friend…”

“Girls _can_ have male friends.”

“And more often than not…”

“Just look at Carrie and Devin!”

“Who hooked up at the end of the Race.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m _saying_ that you like him!”

By this point, most of the other people in the Darwin’s Food Safari were looking over at the table, at which Amy was stood – one had on her fork, the other in her food. All the looks the two girls were getting caused Tomoko to slouch back in her chair with her hood up, when she noticed that her friend’s hand had been slammed onto her fork.

“That hurt?” Tomoko was unfazed by the small droplets of blood on the tablecloth.

“Yes.” She sat back down, yanking the cutlery out of her palm and casually polishing it off with the tablecloth.

“You’re not seriously planning on using it again, are you?”

“What? No. Anyway, Kitty was right – she has to be!”

“She isn’t. And here I thought I finally had a friend on my side in all this.”

“Whatever. We can continue this discussion--”

“DEBATE.”

“ _Discussion_ …elsewhere. I need to run my hand under some water.” Amy raised her arm to attract someone’s attention. “Can I get this to go?”

“Ew…”

“It’s just my hand that’s been in there. And not the bloody one.” Amy left her share of the money on the table, grabbing Tomoko’s arm and pulling her towards the exit. “Anyway, let’s go! I have about five hours until I have to go, and I wanna hear more about this boy drama!”

Tomoko just groaned. “Why couldn’t we have just gone back to the water park?”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomoko helps Shinjiro feed advice to Leon.  
> Yeah, I dunno how to describe this one any better.

Okay, Tomoko had to admit, the fact that she and Amy were messaging more often again was a good thing, but it would be better if she wasn’t only talking about Kiyotaka. Well, slight exaggeration, there was _one_ cheerleading team clip and a random video link she’d found a couple nights previous. But everything else was related to Tomoko’s “love life”.

“Tomoko,” Tess called from upstairs. “I’m going out for a bit. Also the next time you see you brother, let him know that Kazuichi came over with something from him.”

“And what would that be?”

“Beats me. Later!” Almost as soon as she’d got her attention, she’d left again. Glancing down to the porch, she spotted a small shoddily wrapped box by the door. Tomoko already knew Shinjiro had something off of Kazuichi not too long ago, so this thing probably went along with it.

“Hm. I should probably check in with him.”

 

* * *

 

Since most of the guys in Class 5 weren’t too fond on the idea of the Date Tickets – mainly because of the Chris Coins – they instead came up with the idea to spend one big day out together, and the most popular choice ended up being paintballing. The group in question consisted of most of the guys in the class (excluding Teruteru), as well as MacArthur, Ian and Leon.

Shinjiro was taking all his action anime series a little too seriously, making him a clear target for the rest of the group. Ian had a terrible aim, as did DJ. Mondo’s larger size in comparison to the others had a similar effect. Both Ian and DJ had terrible aim but managed to outlast the others. In most of the games, Geoff, Brody, Duncan and MacArthur formed a team to take out everyone else, with them mostly winning. Despite his weakness in comparison, Chihiro’s ability to hide from the others meant he was able to win a fight. As for Leon, it was all hit and miss. The one thing that everyone had in common was the large number of bruises they left the woods with.

Following the hours of running around shooting each other with painful paint pellets, the whole group reconvened at a café not far away from the academy. Once the rest of his group members had stopped DJ from apologising to hitting Chihiro in the head by mistake, each of them had broken off into separate conversations, except for Leon who was waiting for the right moment to interject with a question of his own. Eventually, his voice cut through all the others, being far too loud for a public place.

“So what would you guys do in order to get a girl?”

At that, every head turned to him, Ian accidentally spitting his drink at Duncan sat across from him.

“Uh, except for MacArthur.”

“What are you doing?!” Ian whispered to him. “I thought you wanted it to stay a secret!”

“And probably Duncan because, you know…”

Chihiro looked confused. “Where is this coming from?”

“Uh, just wanted to know. For…uh…Kuzuryuu.”

Obviously, nobody really believed him, if the new looks and awkward silence was anything to go by. Fortunately, the tension was dissipated when Shinjiro spoke up.

“The obvious would be to get her a gift. Who’s the girl that _Kuzuryuu_ wants to go out with?”

“Uh, beats me.” While on the inside, Leon was thinking _thank you._

“Well dependent on the person, there’s this manga you could get her – it’s called The Bomb Inside Her. Apparently it’s a hit with young girls. The basic plot is that the main protagonist has a bomb in her womb that’ll explode if she falls in love…”

 ...

“…and that’s when she meets a boy at her school who she’s worried she’s going to fall in love with,” Tomoko deadpanned off of the Internet. The item in question from Kazuichi was actually an earpiece which coupled with the things Shinjiro had already – a second earpiece, and a pair of Shinjiro’s old glasses with a tiny camera embedded in them. He’d already planned to use them after the day out for passing tips onto Leon. And that was when she remembered that laptop stashed in Tess’ room. “So she does everything possible in order to make him hate her.”

The view from Shinjiro’s Glasses-Cam was shown on the laptop, split screen with the numerous data folders and some random web article on The Bomb Inside Her. Unfortunately, the audio was too quiet to pick up without the volume on full blast, so every so often the twins would be forced to text one another. Almost immediately, Tomoko’s phone vibrated on Tess’ bed.

_now try and find Komaru’s manga if its out :)_

Sighing, she did, while searching through the limited amount of information in Sayaka’s data folder. After five minutes of scrolling through increasingly dodgy websites, deleting the browser history behind her, and waiting for some kind of research tip as MacArthur rambled about her insane number of part-time jobs before entering the police academy (pizza delivery, ice cream truck, juice bar, hot dog vendor…the list went on), Tomoko came up short and texted her brother back.

_Not available, got info on Maizono-san_

_k just wait for signal_

The “signal” was an awfully loud fake cough on Shinjiro’s part, as the audio was so dodgy that she could miss a potential place to give a prompt. Eventually, she was able to vaguely hear talk of the presents that are sold in both the supermarket and vending machine – seconds on, the signal came and Tomoko turned the earpiece back on.

“It says here that Maizono-san’s favourite presents are…the kitten hairclip, the rose in vitro, everlasting bracelet and love status ring. And from the pictures we have in this document, anything else cute.”

The view on the Glasses Cam turned to Leon, sat directly next to Shinjiro. _“If you’re looking for something for Sayaka, then I’d recommend the rose in vitro, or essentially anything cute. Maybe one of the jewellery items since they’re kinda easy to find.”_

_“Yeah, that seems to match her personality…wait, how do you know?”_

_“Word of God.”_

_“…okay,”_ Leon had a drink.

Another scroll through the present preferences, and Tomoko quickly went back to the earpiece. “By the way, only Hanamura-kun, Tsumiki-san and Fukawa-san’s personality likes Kokeshi Dynamo, so stay away from that.”

_“Oh and Leon, under no circumstances buy the weird Dynamo thing.”_

_“Kokeshi Dynamo? Why does every Hope’s Peak like selling those when nobody likes them?”_

_“Beats me.”_

_“What’s a Kokeshi Dynamo?”_

_“Some weird vibrating kid’s toy.”_ As the table began a conversation about the presents, Tomoko heard Shinjiro responding to her. _“You’re the best."_

_“Oh don’t I know it.”_ Turns out he’d forgotten about turning on the earpiece on his side, so Leon must have thought he was talking to him, which triggered a small laugh from Tomoko.

She sighed, removing her earpiece. “Well, I think I’m done here.” However, as she got to closing down every page, a *ding* from the laptop drew her attention to the screen’s bottom corner. An email notification had appeared from…

Kyoko Kirigiri…?

_10/04/2017_   
_Emergency – meet at the discussed meeting point to travel to HQ._   
_\- Kirigiri_

“Who is this woman? Why does she know Kirigiri-san?” Unconsciously, Tomoko had moved the mouse pointer over the laptop’s mail tab.

_No_. _**No way**_. _This is_ so _wrong_.

Even though she wanted to know what the hell was going on with her, she still didn’t have the guts to go trolling through Tess’ emails. Maybe it would all end up being a huge misunderstanding and instead she’d be clicking on some real TMI exchanges.

That, and she’d see that someone had read the email the next time she logged on.

Closing down the last few windows and turning off the connection to Shinjiro’s glasses, she closed the laptop, stashing it back in the box under the bed where she’d found it. She stood up from the bed, slipping her earpiece and phone back into her hoodie pockets, and quietly closed the door on her way out.

“What are you doing?”

Out of pure shock, Tomoko slammed the door the rest of the way, spinning round to face Tess. She didn’t look angry, per se, but had more of a look of confusion on her face.

“H-how long have you been back?”

“Only a few minutes. I couldn’t find you anywhere else. So,” she folded her arms, “you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Well, uh, last time Leon was over, Shinjiro hid one of his things in this room. Out of retaliation for when he hid his shampoo earlier in the year. And I was, um, trying to find it for him.” Tomoko pulled the earpiece out of her pocket. “Uh, here it is. See you later!”

In one of her least subtle moments, she power-walked downstairs towards the kitchen, Tess watching after her.

“What’s gotten into her?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned - more Danganronpa centric events set to happen next chapter. Nothing too graphic or explicit but still, it's a precursor for the future of the series.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The news of the renewed attacks in Japan only gets worse when history repeats itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has references to violence, but not really that graphic.  
> Also, I know the fate of the other two FF members was left ambiguous in DR Gaiden, but whatever.

After disturbance on top of disturbance to the normal school day, a week-long break was called at the Neo Hope’s Peak Academy, which gave the Foundation leaders a chance to return to Japan. At first, the purpose of the extra week was to deal with the renewed attacks, but certain leaders had a whole other series of problems to deal with.

Days after the old students were evacuated from the school area, there appeared to be even more attacks around that area, albeit against civilians rather than solely students. The Future Foundation troops were quick to intervene and apprehend those responsible, and the problem ended with few casualties.

At least it would have done, if the Monokumas hadn’t reared their heads.

No further attacks were reported in that area, but more and more began all over the nation, including an encore in Towa City. In response, more sub-bases were set up in some of the major cities, with nearly half of the Future Foundation’s overall troops being stationed elsewhere permanently. Thankfully, unlike previously, not everywhere was affected – the whole of the north was established as a safe zone, and there were zones that had managed to fend off the oncoming attackers.

And that would have been the centre of the Foundation’s attention. But then more bad news came.

 

* * *

 

Once again, duties for each branch were altered. Branches 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 were tasked with managing the resurgence of attacks; in the meantime, branches 2, 5, 6, 7 and 14 had been called by one of Juzo’s employees to investigate something.

As Kyoko walked through the halls towards the office of the Special Case Bureau, she saw the majority of the members running from office to office with paperwork or whatever their branches required – a sight she hadn’t seen within the Foundation in years. If that was the case, then this must be an even bigger problem than she’d first thought.

Eventually, she reached the office she was looking for, the door slightly ajar. Already present were Juzo, Kyosuke, Chisa, Miaya, Makoto and Byakuya. Kyoko’s eyes scanned the room until she found the person who sent out the emergency call – Ikue Dogami, section chief of the Special Case Bureau.

“What’s happened?” It was only then that she noted the grim looks on the faces of her old classmates. “Naegi-kun? Togami-kun?”

“It’s happened again. The killing game.”

Despite her stoic exterior, Kyoko was unable to hide the surprise on her face. No, not surprise. Disbelief.

“From what we’ve seen,” Ikue said, “it seems to bear more similarities to the one involving the Hope’s Peak student council, rather than the Killing School Life that your class were a part of. No class trials, no investigations, just free for all murder.”

Juzo took over. “Thanks to Katsuragi’s talent, we were able to find where it was taking place and save the ones who survived.” He pointed to said member, an incredibly young female in a hoodie, fast asleep on a couch near the back.

“The ones who survived?”

Kyosuke walked over to the monitor in the office. “Unfortunately, we were too late to save everyone. From what was found at the scene, there were sixteen people forced to take part. Eleven confirmed dead. The remaining five are on their way over here to be questioned, but we still need to try and determine everyone’s identities. Gekkogahara.”

On his cue, Miaya changed the display of the monitor to some footage from the killing game, enhanced as much as possible. “This is the best I could do. The footage was difficult to alter and I couldn’t get hold of any audio, so clearly the one behind this must know what they’re doing.”

The images showed a number of unconscious people in a warehouse, a large stack of weapons in the middle. There was a large monitor mounted on the wall, with another surveillance camera on the opposite wall, significantly lower down.

“Unfortunately, Gekkogahara was unable to access the footage from the other camera.”

“The real problem we’re having is identifying the victims. By the time troops stormed the area, all of them were gone.”

“But wouldn’t the survivors have seen them be taken away?”

“We’ll see for ourselves in a bit.”

Kyoko leaned over to take a better look. Now she could see that there were nine males and seven females, an odd gender ratio in comparison to previous games (when including Mukuro from the first one). As the footage played on, more of the participants started to come to, and the detective noticed something. Six of the males and three females immediately moved close to one another to form a large huddle, two other males and females had stood off to the sides in pairs, and the remaining three all stayed by themselves.

The display on the monitor became static-y, quickly being replaced with a face they knew all too well.

“Monokuma.”

“Does that mean that a Despair committed this?”

“There still _are_ Despairs out there?!”

“There’s no way to tell,” Kyoko said, eyes still trained on the footage. “Especially with the audio missing, it’s even more difficult to tell.”

Despite this, Kyoko spotted one of the pairs yelling at the monitor, clearly out of anger. As they cooled off, the monitor shut off completely, one of the solo women storming over to the angered couple. From the looks of things, the male looked ready to attack the lone girl, when a smart looking woman stepped in to calm the situation. In the meantime, the other lone male looked on nonchalantly, as the larger group were likely muttering among themselves.

But just as the situation seemed to cool down, Kyoko’s expression changed.

“Gekkogahara-san.” On her cue, the therapist paused the clip. “Zoom in on the confrontation.”

As the images of the four people became clearer, Kyoko was able to start discerning their identities. The lone girl wore a brown high school uniform and had a bow in the right side of her hair. The couple appeared to be in similarly styled black clothing with hints of red. As for the older woman, she wore glasses, had very short brown hair and had a suit-like outfit on. And she was all too familiar to the detective.

“Well? Have you figured something out?”

“The woman stepping in is an old friend of mine from the DSC, Yui Samidare.”

“Samidare-san?” Chisa asked. “She’s been acting in my place in the Foundation while I’ve been teaching.”

“The girl in the uniform is Kanon Nakajima, a girl who Hagakure-kun managed to save from the Tragedy. But I don’t recognise the other two at all.”

“Anything about the other ones?”

“Not yet. It’s a little too dark to see.”

The footage continued to play, and the male formerly in the argument slowly walked towards the pile of weapons, picking up a knife. Noticing this, most of the other people started backing away, except for one sat in the corner. The knife wielder pointed the blade towards him, slowly moving closer towards him. Even though the bespectacled girl tried to calm the situation once more, the loner must have said something to anger him, given how he charged at top speed towards him.

However, the Kanon girl pulled out a Megaphone Hacking Gun that the Foundation members hadn’t noticed she had on her, succeeding in shooting the knife out of his hand before he could get anywhere near him. Instantly, he charged towards her ready to attack, but one punch from Kanon sent him back on his ass.

In the meantime, Kyoko noticed the woman picking up a weapon of her own – a circular saw to be precise – and began stalking towards the large group. Unfortunately, Kanon was unable to notice this until she heard the screams of the first victim.

One of the males in the large group now lay in a pile of blood, terrifying all of his supposed friends. In response to this, the two larger males ran forward to pin her, unaware of the knife holder going for them. A girl in the group with very long hair tried to stand between them, only to be slashed in the arm.

“Whoever that group is, they must have been very close before this.”

“Could that be part of the reason why they were targeted?”

In the time it took for their exchange, both the larger males had joined their friend on the floor. The remaining couple who were yet to do anything looked ready to jump into action, with the man trying to disarm one of them, and the woman with him moving the injured girl to the other end of the warehouse.

Kyosuke raised an eyebrow. “Do those two participants look familiar to you?”

“Yes,” Ikue said. “They are…were, two of mine. To think they’re still alive…”

“And now you bring it up,” Chisa added, “is that boy from Future Foundation too?”

“Which one? The loner?” Byakuya leaned closer. “It’s a little difficult to discern any features yet.” Said boy was rummaging through the pile for something, eventually walking back to his old place with an old looking rifle and vanishing from view.

Once again, more had been added to the death toll – only two people in the large group were left – the injured girl, and a grey-haired guy with a larger bleeding wound on his stomach. By this point, the murderous couple were both drenched in blood. The woman with the saw ran for Yui and the injured girl.

Only to be knocked to the floor by a bullet to the shoulder.

“Woah! Where did that come from?” Monomi/Miaya asked.

“It must be him.”

Another shot from Kanon and she was disarmed, the girl shooting her with a blast of electricity for good measure. In the meantime, on the other side, the injured boy had managed to crawl towards the weapons, taking a katana and succeeding in impaling it through his attacker. Seconds later, his knife fell to the floor, with him succumbing to the attack soon after. The young man also hit the ground, nobody knowing whether or not he’d survived.

“So, is that all?”

“Not quite.”

More time passed with nobody moving. When none of the two attackers showed signs of life, the woman who Ikue had said was “one of hers” started doing what she could to tend to the girl’s wound, at the same time consoling her for the loss of her friends. Ikue’s former male employee stood over the unconscious female murderer in case she got back up again, while Yui and the loner boy walked towards the deceased to examine the bodies. With nothing to do, Kanon tried everything she could to get the warehouse doors open.

“Now I recognise him,” Kyoko said. “He’s from Branch 13.”

“Was he away on a job?”

“Yes, according to Asahina-san, Nobuharu-san had him working in the field.” Kyoko quickly checked the footage. “Have they come back yet?”

“They’re currently on their way here. We’ll have to see what they found out about that group when they arrive. Ensure that Branch 4 are ready to provide medical assistance.”

A buzz on the wall drew their attention away temporarily. “The helicopter’s ready on the roof. You should probably get a move on.”

“You’re right,” Makoto said. “We still have to tell Fukawa-san, Asahina-san, Hagakure-kun…”

“What about the 77th Class?”

Byakuya sighed. “And unfortunately, Chris.”

“I’ll be back in touch if I learn anything new.”

The remaining leaders followed them back to their respective offices, all the while listening to the classmates either talking about whether the former Remnants should know about the killings, or Byakuya expressing his disdain for this “godforsaken partnership”.

All the while Kyoko knew she’d have to do her bit in Canada and figure out who was behind this.

And why exactly they did it.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The remaining survivors are briefed on Japan's current state, a new creation from one of the students is revealed, and the 77th Class have to hide their new information from their classmate.

When only the four of them were being called back to the Neo Hope’s Peak Academy, it was obvious that something was wrong.

Due to the influx of problems following the new killing game, almost every member aside from those formerly from the 78th Class had to stay behind, further prolonging the return to school. With the news fresh in their minds, Makoto, Kyoko and Byakuya called their three fellow survivors to Makoto’s office, to which Hina remarked that the name should just be changed to the “confidential Future Foundation business meeting area”. With the six of them was Hajime, having had to find an excuse to get away without worrying any of his classmates, especially Chiaki.

And needless to say, the fact that another killing game run by Monokuma wasn’t being taken the best.

“But…how? I thought there were no more Remnants of Despair?”

“Hinata-kun--”

“Did the plan fail? Did Enoshima somehow do it?”

“Hinata-kun. If you’ll let us continue.” Kyoko managed to stop him rambling anymore. “We’ve still yet to figure out who exactly the perpetrators were, but there were some findings from those abducted to be a part of it.”

“But who did that? I thought you said all the bodies were gone when the troops arrived.”

“They were. Fortunately, a couple of Future Foundation members were part of the ensemble, so they managed to conduct a small investigation. Only two people actually committed gratuitous murder, and it’s suspected that they were either Despair fanatics, or just two insane people the mastermind managed to rope into it.”

“And the victims?”

“Well, each one of them had something similar on their person.” She held up a slightly tattered scarf from one of the two survivors. “There was a large group of young-ish friends, no older than seventeen it’s estimated, but each one of them had an identical scarf somewhere on them. Seven from this group were killed, two survived, but the chances of one of them surviving seem slim according to recent reports.”

“And this group…they have nothing to do with SHSL Despair?” Hina asked.

“No. Munakata-san and Sakakura-san had a student at the Japanese Hope’s Peak with one of these, so no doubt…”

“Wait.” Toko’s interruption was something of a surprise to her old classmates. Despite her having matured tremendously after the events with Komaru, they’d never fully seen it for themselves. “I-if we are dealing with another Despair, then there must be a reason for targeting that one group.”

“Reason? Like, the mastermind having a vendetta against them?”

“Like Kirigiri said, you still can’t know for sure until their identity’s been discovered. But from what I’ve seen, I have a different theory. Assume we are dealing with a Despair here. Look at what happened in our case – E-Enoshima abducted the person closest to us to use as a motive…or r-rather a dung beetle in my case.”

“Fukawa-chii, what’s your point?”

“You said there was one other person from that group who attended Hope’s Peak? And the footage should easily have been broadcast to other places other than Future Foundation? Well, what if that kid is in a completely different killing game? Hell, what if his or her whole class is part of one, and this is just one of the mastermind’s motives?”

In shock, Byakuya stood up from his seat. “Fukawa, that’s…of course! How did we miss that?”

“R-really?!” Toko gasped. “B-Byakuya-sama…agrees with me…?! T-this has to be a dream… _hah_ … _haaah~_ …”

As Toko’s hands went to her face, murmuring about God knows what, the others looked on like they knew this would have happened sooner or later.

“And now that _that_ moment’s ruined…could that really be it, Kyoko-chan?”

"It certainly makes sense. I’ll have to look a little more into it. By the way, Hinata-kun… _Fukawa-san._ ”

Toko snapped out of whatever delusion she was having this time, and she and Hajime turned to the detective.

“If you wouldn’t mind, be sure to ask Komaru-san for anything else you two saw in Towa City. Togami-kun can pass it on to me.”

“F-fine.”

“And Hinata-kun, it’s down to you whether you tell the rest of your classmates. Mitarai-kun knows already, so chances are he may have told Imposter-san and Mioda-san. But for now, Nanami-san mustn’t know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

…

“And, that’s what’s known about it so far.”

In the end, to avoid arousing too much suspicion from his roommate, he’d only invited the four other Neo World Program survivors, while asking Nagito to keep Chiaki distracted until he was done.

“S-seriously? Another one?!”

“It’s only a possibility, but from the evidence we have, a likely one.”

“But I thought it was just us. Everyone else was either wiped out by Future Foundation or…wasn’t their somethin’ about Towa City?”

“Like I said, the details are vague on the how and why, and especially the who.”

“The Foundation better be working on it.”

“They are, and Naegi said he’d keep me updated on it.”

Sonia looked at her hands. “Another killing game. It’s…unthinkable.”

“And it was the same as ours? With trials and everything?”

“No, this was like…a different one.” Hajime hesitated, the memories of the Student Council massacre resurfacing in his head.

“Huh? Why are there so many of you here?”

All five heads immediately turned to Chiaki. “N-Nanami-san!”

“Oh, uh, I meant to tell you.” Nagito appeared behind her, looking nearly as miffed as the other five. “Hinata-kun invited them over for a gaming session, which we wanted to keep a _surprise_.”

The extra emphasis on “surprise” caused the five of them to get up and start scrambling for controllers etc. All the while, Hajime and Nagito continued the ruse, hoping to any and every deity in existence that she’d fall for it.

And she would have done…if she hadn’t heard the last snippet of the conversation between the group.

“Hinata-kun, everyone…what are you hiding?”

 

* * *

 

“That’s it, two steps back…no, no, no, back _straight_! Do you really expect to be slacking off when you do this with Sayaka?”

“I don’t think she’s gonna care much.”

“ _Again!_ ”

“Jeez, passing the exams put you on a hell of a power trip.”

Given the current situation of the school staff, the nature of the exams was changed so that evidence had to be sent directly to the would-be examiners. And once more, everybody had passed – in all fairness, they were far more lenient since they’d cost them a lot of school time. And with less stress and a little more time off, Shinjiro’s dance lessons could continue.

“He’s not making reference to something, Hara?”

Tomoko, sat on the couch and ignoring the nickname, glanced up from her phone. “Hm? Oh, doubt it.” She quickly went back to what she was looking at, getting the attention of the two guys.

“What has you so engrossed in your phone? Or are you Tess in disguise?”

“This.” She showed Shinjiro and Leon an image on screen, which featured Mike, Zoey and Cameron in winter wear. Scrolling down, there was another image of Lindsay and Beth at an art gallery, with thankfully, no damage done to the artwork this time.

“Oh, social media.”

“Not just _any_ social media. Fujisaki-kun made it for his exam. And it’s exclusively for the Neo Hope’s Peak students and staff. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s an app that combines blogging, photo  & video sharing, and instant messaging. The network is insanely secure – even _that_ was created by him! Think of it as an improved version of the thing on our IDs, except it works on our phones.”

“Fujisaki made this? It looks…so cool!”

“How did you get that?”

“You need to ask him to put it on your phone for you. I could get it done the next time I train at their house. After that there’s a code you need to verify who you are.”

At that moment, the door opened, and Ian came in.

“Do you need me to get it for you too, Ian?”

“What? Chihiro’s app? Already got it.” He showed the display on his phone. “Anywho, guess who’s got an invite to a party?”

Shinjiro feigned a look of wonder. “Gee, I dunno. Who?”

But Tomoko was more sensible about it. “Whose party? Geoff’s? Ibuki’s? Because if so, why didn’t she tell me first?”

“Neither. Trent.”

“Oh, that’s unexpected. Not to mention I had no clue you were close enough for that.”

“Well, not really.” He chucked his phone on the sofa. “We’re friends, sure, but not as close friends as I am with Leon.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

“Also, I don’t know whether or not you two in particular know,” he was referring to Leon and Tomoko, “but it’s a Eurovision party.”

“Uh, what?” Leon was clueless.

“It’s a music contest between the nations of Europe…and Australia.”

“Why?”

“Beats me. But regardless, it’s not a boombox, drug-filled, drink-yourself-to-high-heaven type party. Although there is no rule against alcohol.”

“Yes…” Shinjiro pumped a fist in the air.

“So, how’s the dancing going, you two?”

Tomoko continued to flick through the app’s content. “Well, Shinjiro’s become somewhat of a dictator over this whole thing. I think Kuwata may actually be losing interest in the whole thing.”

“Well, I have a better idea.”

…

“Haven’t played this game in years. It’s a good thing I brought it in the end, am I right?”

For once, the dance instruction wasn’t being undertaken using a celebrity dance show, but rather with whatever dance games Shinjiro had brought along with him. And despite the other three agreeing that most of Leon’s favourites wouldn’t help much, he’d chosen the most ridiculous and unnatural ones.

Which explained why said baseballer was belting a KISS song at maximum volume.

“Leon, it’s called _Just Dance_ , not _Just Drunk Karaoke_.”

“I’m just practicing for when we do this next time we perform.” In the meantime, everyone else was in the role of their respective instruments.

“Nope, no way.”

“And for the record, Shinjiro,” Tomoko added, “we are not doing that dumb looking Spectroniser song afterwards.”

“What?”

“You want to go solo? Fine. But count me out.”

“Everyone shut up! This is my big solo!”

At that moment, the door to the den/garage swung open, with Tess walking in.

“ _I CAN’T GET ENNNNOOOOUUUUUUGGHHHH!!_ …uh…” Still on his knees with his hands in the air, he stared over at the girl in the doorway, unable to help the small red tint in his face. All the while, the others kept going as if nothing happened, racking up more and more points.

“I’d hurry, Kuwata, or else you’re gonna lose.”

“Crap!”

“Guys, I don’t know if you’ve heard this,” Tess said, ignoring Leon’s showboating, “but they have a date for when we’re going back to school. 14th May.”

“That’s the day after the party. On that note, you want to come to?”

“No can do, already spending the day with Maizono-san.”

“What a shocker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A jump ahead to the lazily written party scene.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lost all motivation when it came to writing this chapter, and I just needed a way to include a couple of lines in particular.  
> This chapter contains an almost swear-word, and very subtle referencing of the B-word - the political one, not the other swear word. Also, I don't share the same opinion as a certain, slightly intoxicated character relating to this B-word.

And so, come May 13th, Tess and Sayaka were both sat on Sayaka’s bed in her apartment. Only Junko was still in with them, as Mukuro was shopping for supplies. A little further away given the owner of the normal one was still away. Hidden away from Sayaka in Tess’ bag was a high quality audio recorder, keeping track of the girl’s conversation with her friend. About an hour in, it occurred to her that there was still something she’d been meaning to ask her.

“Okay, so, forgive the personal question, but…”

“Hm?” “I just wanted to know…how exactly do you feel about Kuwata-kun?”

“Kuwata-kun?” Sayaka actually had to think about the question for a moment.

“Yeah, I mean, you seem like close friends when me and the other three aren’t involved. And you were in the same class in Japan. Not to mention the whole music thing.”

“I’ve never really thought about it like that before.” She then glanced to the door. “Uh, we may have to keep quiet about it, otherwise Enoshima-san may be teasing me about it for months.”

“Fair point.”

“But yes.”

“Huh? What’s the yes for?”

“You asked me if I liked him, didn’t you?”

Tess laughed a little. “Uh, no, I asked _how you felt_ about him.”

“…oh, did you?” The blush creeping across Sayaka’s cheeks said everything.

“No way! But…why? I mean outside of being friends, the two of you are total opposites.”

“I know, but especially in Japan, we made a kind of connection. At first, I kind of liked Naegi-kun, but then when I first found out that Kuwata-kun wanted to form his own band, I tried helping him out a little. And if I’m correct, I think he received help from Mioda-san, too.”

“Oh, well, okay.”

_Now all I need to do is help speed things up on Kuwata-kun’s side. But this story has me hooked!_

 

* * *

 

At the same time, five at night, Trent’s party was about to start getting underway. The majority of guests there were Total Drama veterans, with only a handful of Hope’s Peak students.

“So how exactly do these kinds of parties work? It doesn’t look like much of a typical high schooler party.”

“That’s because it isn’t.” Ian filled in the gaps for the clueless Tomoko. “Simply we all watch this Eurovision show together, and whichever country we get is the one we have to root for, all the while critiquing them and, in some cases, eating different European foods.” He pointed towards a table at the back of the main room. Clearly Owen wasn’t at the party, else the whole thing would have been empty.

“And there’s also a drinking game for those of you who want to do it.” Trent took a hat off the sofa, filled with 26 folded sheets of paper. “Okay guys, take your pick.”

Israel – Bridgette  
Poland – Mike  
Belarus – Zoey  
Austria – Cody  
Netherlands – Sanders  
Moldova – Brody  
Hungary – MacArthur  
Italy – Shinjiro  
Denmark – Leshawna  
Portugal – Cameron  
Azerbaijan – Gwen  
Croatia – Tomoko  
Australia – Jasmine  
Greece – Shawn  
Spain – Geoff  
United Kingdom – Ian  
Cyprus – Izzy  
Romania – Leon  
Germany – Sammy  
Ukraine – Beardo  
Belgium – (Sayaka)  
Sweden – Harold  
Bulgaria – Trent  
France – (Tess)  
No person – Armenia, Norway

“How come Ian and Leon both have two?”

“Tess and Sayaka couldn’t come in the end, so they asked if we could take part for them.”

“Also, kinda ironic that Jasmine got Australia, huh?”

Tomoko looked at her flag confused. “What are you even supposed to win if your country wins?”

“And what about the drinking game?”

“Oh, yeah, there’s the rules over there.”

Ian picked up a copy and gave it a once over. “This is a lot of things. Are you sure all of us are going to…you know…” he glanced at Cameron, “…survive?”

“It’ll be fine, dude!” Geoff took the seat next to him, initially reserved for Leon.

“Besides, not everyone has to drink if they don’t want to.”

“Anyway, let’s get this thing set up.”

 

* * *

 

“I thought this show had a voice-over to go with it.”

“Not if you watch the livestream.”

“Shame, it would be a lot more fun.”

“I knew I should’ve brought Topher as a plus-one.”

About four minutes in, the contestants took to the stage, and even from the first one…

“Woah…” most of the girls leaned forward. “Hot guy from Israel.” And then again less than a minute later for the Austrian representative.

“Dude! Epic Sax Guy!” Brody pointed at the Moldovan group.

“Who?”

“He became something of a meme a few years back.”

Soon after was the Azerbaijani singer – a woman with short black hair in something of an emo-esque outfit.

“Hey Gwen, it’s you!” Geoff called over, to the ire of said goth girl.

Another couple minutes and the Spanish entry came on, giving off a very surfer-ish vibe.

“Hey Geoff, it’s you,” Gwen retorted, blocking a cushion being tossed in her direction.

…

_“So, how have the performances been so far?”_

Near the end of the Hungary performance, Tess decided to ring in to check on the party.

“Let’s see – a little pitchy, diva style, upbeat, the fourth one was fine, not all too memorable, a girl group song that sounds like a movie soundtrack, Epic Sax Guy, and the last one wasn’t the best in my opinion. And thankfully, there hasn’t been too much alcohol consumed.”

_“Have our performers been on yet?”_

“You two are right at the end. Shinjiro’s on now.”

“Hmm,” Shinjiro looked at the screen inquisitively. “Occidentali’s Karma? Does that count as a nonsensical title?”

“I think it should.” On cue, everyone at the party took a swig of their drinks. Surprisingly, everyone old enough had been down for the alcohol part, even Cameron. “Hey, this isn’t such an awful song. It’s catchy, has cool visuals, nothing really random ye--”

“And now we have a guy in a gorilla costume.”

Tomoko and Leon looked into their half-empty glasses. “Wow this stuff’s strong.”

“Welcome to Eurovision. It has nothing to do with the alcohol.”

“Oh.” The two of them downed the rest of their glasses’ contents.

…

“Alright, next is Romania. Leon!”

“Okay, this looks good. A couple performing, maybe a romantic song? Victory is mine!”

“Yeah…I’m not so sure about that. Check the title.”

Confused, Leon did. “Right…Yodel It.” Beat. “Oh, man.”

As the song started, and the woman yodelled, Tomoko looked down at her drink again, seriously questioning whether or not it was the alcohol.

…

“Is it just me, or could nobody else hear the Belgian singer?”

“At least the quiet was helpful for the people who can’t take the drinks.”

“I think some of them were too far gone, however.”

“And…it’s only gotten worse…”

Despite the vocals to this song being almost completely silent, a highly intoxicated Shinjiro, Leon, Izzy and Geoff were all in the corner re-enacting the yodelling track. Brody and MacArthur were both on the floor behind the sofa making out, not as drunk. Both Tomoko and Sanders nursed their growing headaches, and Cameron was passed out over Mike and Zoey’s laps. While Cody was passed out on the floor.

“At least we only have the results of the voting left, then we can all…” the boys’ horrific yodelling made Tomoko’s head pain spike. “SHUT UP!”

They did…for a good three seconds.

“Okay, place your bets everyone!”

“By the way, what _is_ the prize for the person with the most votes?”

“In the end, we just went with a bottle of something.”

“Alcoholic?”

“Yes.”

“Great, that’s the last thing any of us need now.”

While most of the group were too drunk, groggy or passed out to pay attention to the incoming results, the sober Ian and Jasmine were the opposite, Ian in particular because of who was next to vote.

“Alright, here we go!” Ian sat upright and rubbed his hands together. “Finally gonna move to the top of the board!”

“How are you still so energetic?” Tomoko couldn’t help but envy how Ian was the only one who didn’t feel like total crap. Guess being underage did still have its perks.

“Ireland’s voting next, and every year they give the UK points, about eight on average. And then we can finally oh-- here it comes!”

_“The jury have voted, and our twelve points from Ireland go to…”_

“The UK!”

_“Belgium!”_

“WHAT?!” Ian spat out his mouthful of cola. “They gave the one nobody could hear the top amount of points, and the actually artistic, perfectly audible UK entry gets nothing?! They’re just doing this to spite them all because of that political bullsh--”

“ _Should_ somebody tell him to calm down?”

“Also, are we sure he hasn’t had anything to drink?”

By the time the remainder of the televotes passed and the jury votes began, it wasn’t just Ian who was annoyed with the decisions made. Eventually the competition of which singer would come out on top fell down to three – front-runner Portugal (Cameron), Bulgaria (Trent), and Moldova (Brody).

“Come on. They have 382 points already – just give the bottle to Cameron!”

“Wait a moment. The number of votes could be absolutely anything.”

“Oh, no, wait. Never mind. They were right.”

“You know what that means…first and last, Cameron and Geoff, down your cups!”

Geoff, still barely standing, did, while Cameron remained unconscious on the sofa.

 

* * *

 

“Hey guys! How was the party?”

Both Ian and Tomoko – the sober/less drunk ones out of their little group – had the tedious job of dragging their drunk friends home. When getting to the Hope’s Peak dorms, Hina and Sakura had thankfully taken the out-cold Leon off of Ian’s hands. Unfortunately, the far more evidently drunk Shinjiro had burst into fits of drunk anger all the way back.

“Good. Cameron won. Even though I don’t think he’ll appreciate it in the morning.”

“Could you give us a hand with getting Shinjiro upstairs?”

“Geroff~…I’m 23…can do it myself…” As he slurred out his sentence, he pushed the others aside to prove a point. Only to slip on the first step and knock out.

Seconds later, the remaining three took to carrying him upstairs, Ian and Tess on the arms and Tomoko at the feet.

“I knew getting him on alcohol was a bad idea.”

“Can we just dump him somewhere? I don’t wanna put up with this all night.”

“I think he just threw up a little.”

“Well, I’m done here.” Tess dropped the arm she was holding, almost causing Ian to topple under the weight. “Sort it out.” The door to her room closed, with the other two sharing a look. “He’s not going in my room either.”

“Then what? Do we just put him back down on the sofa?”

Tomoko looked past him, spotting the open door at the end of the hallway. “I have an idea. One that will make Tess regret leaving it to us.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where things finally start straying out of the fluff territory and back into the grittier, Danganronpa territory. Well, in the second half anyway.

The day after the party, both Tomoko and Ian were able to get to school on time, despite the slight headache Tomoko still had from the alcohol. Tess and Shinjiro on the other hand, had a very different experience.

The following morning, Tess headed for the bathroom in nothing but a towel for her morning shower. Passing the boys’ room, she didn’t see or hear her drunk roommate, causing her to wonder where the hell they’d dumped him in the end.

She opened the door to the bathroom and discarded her towel, only to freeze in horror when she saw what was in the tub.

Still reeking of booze, Shinjiro was fast asleep, his glasses skewed on his face and his clothing all wrinkled, not to mention his trousers round his ankles and the…was that puke on his shirt?

Apparently, the ensuing scream resonated through the entire house.

“The cockroaches from the old house haven’t come back for revenge, have they?” Tomoko could be heard from her own room. “Because if so, good lu-- oh.”

“What’s going on up-- YIPE!”

Forgetting about her towel, Tess ran back towards her room, a sight which both her younger brother and Tomoko were unfortunate to have witnessed.

“Uhh…well, we, uh, should probably be…headed to sch-school about now…”

Now red in the face, Ian traipsed back downstairs to finish packing his bag, while Tomoko laughed at everyone’s situation. The laughing quickly died as she ran down the stairs, somehow giving herself a small headache.

“You okay?” Ian asked, opening the door with a little red still visible.

“Yeah, probably laughing too hard. Anyway, you got our lunches? I wanna see if Tess’ idea of a lunch is any good.”

“Hm? Y-yeah, I’ve got them.”

“Oh, get over it. It’s not like it was a random girl at the school. And come on, the revenge for yesterday worked, huh?”

 

* * *

 

For the two following weeks, Shinjiro’s attitude seemed to take an astronomical nose dive in regards to Neo Hope’s Peak, and Tomoko had more of those mini headaches every couple of days. Sometimes, it would vanish as quickly as it had come along, but today it was persistent.

With only Ian being home with her at the end of the second week, she chose to lay down in her room for a little and not over-exert herself for the rest of the day, returning to the Assassination Classroom mangas from last year.

Her bookshelf was a relatively well-organised one. Random knickknacks filled the top shelf, with novels and reference book on the next one down, and the manga finally at the very bottom. For some reason, all the spines of the manga were sticking off of the shelf’s edge, which all the other books weren’t doing.

She crouched down to the bottom shelf of her bookcase to take the yellow book, but was stunned when she saw what was hidden behind it…possibly the reason why all the other mangas were hanging over the edge.

Two more books lay behind them, clearly things she’d wanted to hide from other people. Hidden so well that she herself had forgotten she’d put them there. And what they were.

She moved the entire collection aside to see what they were – _Manga for Morons: The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History_ , and the sequel, _Killing School Life_.

Oh. “I thought Kirigiri-san had these. Guess not.”

Taking the one with the title that was too much of a mouthful for her, she walked over to her bed and flicked the book open:

_The Tragedy of Hope’s Peak Academy was simply the trigger…_

_At first, the uprising by the Reserve Course students that triggered the Tragedy of Hope’s Peak Academy was initially hoped to be resolved quickly, but the situation continued to escalate to dangerous extremes. The movement started spreading all over the Internet, and fostered a thriving online community. The community was not limited to students, and people of various races & nations began joining in. But the movement was not confined to the Internet, and began spreading and eroding the real world._

_When the movement started, it was indistinguishable from any other demonstration inspired by social unrest. But as it spread across the world, certain abnormalities soon came to light. By then it was too late. The ends and the means had vanished and wanton destruction became their only goal. The strong butchered the weak…the weak killed the weakest among them…and soon, the weak formed factions to brutally murder the strong. As the violence and death continued to spread, the shock of their actions began--_

The front door slamming broke her concentration and almost set the head pains off again.

“Guys! I’m bored!”

Groaning, Tomoko set her manga down next to her and yelled back to her brother. “So what do you want us to do about it?”

“I’m calling a movie night!”

As she heard shuffling downstairs, she glanced down at the creepy manga, eventually stashing it and the follow up under her pillows. “Fine, so long as Kiki goes on the list!”

…

No real reason for Shinjiro’s sudden call was ever brought up, the three of them just sat on the sofa to enjoy the films together. Ian put forward a musical that had recently come out (“What? Didn’t I ever mention it’s my genre of choice?”), and Tomoko’s favourite had thankfully come after.

“So, are you like Shinjiro in that you like anime films, or what?”

“No, I just enjoy feel-good films. So maybe musicals are my kind of thing too. They’re good at invoking those sorts of moods.”

“I know, right?”

Tomoko glanced over at the clock. “Woah, is that the time? We should probably be heading to bed by now. School tomorrow.”

“You sure we don’t have time for one more drink?” Shinjiro asked.

Tomoko looked over again. “Fine. And you can put your film on tomorrow.”

“Okay, gin or beer?”

“Did you learn nothing from the party? You fell asleep in the bathtub.”

“Yeah, but that was only because of that damn drinking game. This is _one_ drink.” Shinjiro got up. “You still haven’t answered the question.”

“Fine. Hot chocolate.”

“Café latte for me.”

“Ian, that’s even worse.”

“Only a _small_ one. I don’t do all-nighters before school, you know.”

As he walked to the kitchen, Shinjiro groaned. “I still don’t understand why we have to go there. We’ve got nothing to do with either side – kind of except for Tomoko – and the ages are all wrong.” He put two mugs and a glass on the countertop, so hard that the others thought he’d broken them. “Seriously! Why has nobody questioned this yet? Most of the TD lot should have graduated college by now, and you and I are 23!”

“This is…coming out of nowhere…” Ian looked confused.

“Okay, when did you have more alcohol? I knew having Kizakura as a homeroom teacher was a bad idea – even Yukizome-san said so!”

“I didn’t! What’s your problem? This isn’t something worth joking about!”

“I am not joking! It’s something that needs to be addressed!”

“What, the fact that some of us are older than others? That’s almost as ridiculous as that conspiracy theory about Tess!”

“Whatever. Just let me grab a drink already.” He reached for the bottle in the fridge, but Tomoko quickly snatched it away.

“Nope. In this mood, that’s the last thing you need!”

“I’m 23! You can’t tell me what I can and can’t drink!”

In the meantime, Ian was lying on the sofa in the foetal position, trying to ignore the sibling argument happening in the other room.

“AGAIN with this?! This is exactly what went on during the party!”

“You’re acting like it’s a load of crap!”

“Because it is! We are not 23!”

“Alright then, how old are we, huh?!”

“Twenty-three!”

“No, we’re…did you just say 23?”

“No, I said nineteen…wait…”

As the two fell into silence, Ian finally joined them in the kitchen area. “Uh, not that I don’t appreciate all the effort you two put into this little performance, but I’m kind of in the dark about it.”

“This isn’t an act, Ian.” Tomoko’s hand went to her head, a pained expression on her face again. “Ugh, what the hell is this? O-okay, let’s clarify. When were we born?”

“January 21st 1994…”

“Then, why did I think we were born in 1998 all this time?”

Another uncomfortable silence followed. The twins looked at one another with Ian looking between them. Eventually, Ian spoke up.

“So, do you guys have amnesia or something? Was there something that happened that may have caused it?”

“No!” Shinjiro shouted. “That’s insane. There’s no way.”

“Excuse me a moment.” Tomoko didn’t look at either boy, walking straight back to the living room for her phone.

 

* * *

 

With the news of the killing game coming from Byakuya, and the resulting days off from school, the publicity surrounding the kids got less and less. Bad in terms of Total Drama, but kinda good in terms of proving to the sceptics that it still wasn’t being filmed.

As he was getting himself a coffee, his mobile buzzed in his pocket. He hadn’t been expecting a call for anything, so there must have been some kind of emergency. And this thought was all but affirmed when Tomoko’s caller ID displayed.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end belonged to Tomoko, something he would have expected should a problem arise. What he wasn’t expecting was the tone bordering on a total explosion of anger.

“ ** _Christopher McLean, we need to talk._** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be out in three or four days this time.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth starts to come out to the three.

Not one of the three of them could get any sleep last night.

After receiving the phone call, Chris and Byakuya had told them to meet with them about it the next morning while class went on. The three had tried to forget about the events by watching one more film, but there was still an awkward mood in the air. For the rest of the night, Ian had been getting to bed just fine until Shinjiro chose to keep him up all night mumbling about everything. Tomoko had just decided to keep reading over the mangas in the hope that it would help. Of course, with the recent reveal and the late hours, she’d gone off a few minutes after starting.

And so, the next morning, the three of them were all in Makoto’s office, with said headmaster taking Byakuya’s place in class. Ian was messing with the strap of his bag, Shinjiro slouched in his seat, while Tomoko gave the two men behind the desk a look that could very much kill.

Shifting awkwardly under the intern’s cold glare, Chris cleared his throat. “So…you three may be wondering why exactly you’re here.”

“Because Tomoko got mad?” She kicked her brother hard in the leg, eyes not leaving her boss.

“Yes, the three of you _do_ have amnesia.”

Ian glanced at the other two before raising a hand. “Excuse me. I could have sworn you just said the _three_ of us.”

“I did, Ian.”

“Wh--” he had to try not to laugh. “B-but that can’t be possible. I mean, everything’s fine with me!” He pulled out his ElectroID and went for his profile. “See? June 6th, 1998. Eighteen years old for real. No problems!”

“I don’t doubt that, but amnesia goes beyond ages and birthdays. The specifics of what you’ve lost are miniscule in comparison to the other two.”

“Oh this is gonna be fun.” Another kick.

"Unfortunately, it isn't up to me to discuss certain things that were removed from your memory, and in some cases, neither of us know the full extent. But we will talk about everything we can. And I know you must be wondering why this happened. That is one of the things I’m not at liberty to discuss."

“Alright McLean,” Tomoko crossed her legs and folded her arms, “enough stalling. Start talking.”

“Let’s start with the least affected. Shinjiro.”

“I thought you said _I_ was the least affected just now.”

“In terms of _how much_ you’ve lost, not in terms of the impact of what you’ve lost. So, nothing really interesting happened--" Chris was temporarily cut off when he too received a kick to the leg, albeit from Byakuya. "Alright! Nothing happened that warranted your memories being removed - the main problems were with Tomoko. The same thing had to be done with you to avoid raising suspicions, given the whole twin debacle. All you’re really missing is two years of high school and two of college." Chris pulled a box up from under the desk, which contained numerous books and papers. "We put together a box for each of you, which have a number of things which should help with restoring your memories. This is some of your school stuff from those four years, along with some other important documents etc.”

Shinjiro put it on his lap and sifted through it a little, muttering under his breath.

"Unfortunately, that's all we have for you. Nothing too serious should come up when they start coming back."

"Alrighty."

"Now if you could just wait outside."

"Wh-- why?"

"The nature of what's to come, I think will require a little privacy,” Byakuya said. “Whether they choose to disclose this with you is up to them."

"Right, fair enough. Thanks, I guess." Shinjiro took his box under his arm and walked out the room, taking a seat by the door. Once it closed, Tomoko looked to Ian, who was up next.

"Okay, Ian. Unfortunately, we don't really know what happened with you." This clearly troubled him. "However, what we can tell you is that you used to live here."

Ian and Tomoko looked over at one another in surprise. "In this dump?"

"It wasn't always like it before you arrived here," Byakuya cut in. "There was something of a tragedy that happened here, purely unprecedented, that made the place into the ruin you remember it for. It happened some months before Total Drama Academy began. Everyone was forced to leave, and you and your family relocated to Los Angeles."

"So we didn't always live there."

Chris rifled for a sheet. "According to your records, you lived there in your earlier years, and then relocated here because of a parent's job. After everything that happened here, the place was cornered off from the rest of the country. And we...well, you know, since you've been here for nearly three years."

"But what exactly happened? And does Tess know about this?"

"That isn't something for either of us to disclose at the moment. However, I wouldn't talk about this around your sister, just in case. Either it could lead to bad consequences if she doesn’t remember, or she could be unaffected. It’s better to keep things under wraps for the time being.”

"Right." Chris pushed his box over to him, which compared to Shinjiro's contained barely anything. "Other than that, it should all be fine. No age differences, no missing events, just the things we mentioned before. Feel free to come back to either of us if you need anything."

"Will do."

The door closed behind him, and the remaining three were silent. Tomoko could tell that whatever they had to share with her, it was giant.

"Alright, Tomoko. Where to begin?"

"It doesn't matter, so long as I get something."

"I think you can tell since you were last, but the extent of what you've forgotten is the biggest.” Chris trailed off.

“And what about it?”

“You see, it covers…more than four years.”

Tomoko jumped up from her seat at this but was stopped from grabbing Chris from over the desk when Byakuya continued.

"It's a little confusing, but put simply, your memories have only really been altered. Not only from those four years, but also a few from your earlier years."

Slowly, Tomoko sat back down. "And I assume there are some things you don't know or can't tell me about?"

"Unfortunately. We can't talk about the memories from your childhood, and there are a fair few things that other people know of, but we don't."

"When you say, "can't talk about it", does that mean you don't have the authority, or that you're hiding something?"

"No authority. While we do think we could under normal circumstances, another person who knows about it has stopped us from doing so. I'll have to talk with them next time I see them."

"Right." Tomoko stopped to think. “So, that means I didn’t come here to work as an intern age 12, but 16?”

“Yep. What? Did you seriously think I’d hire a twelve-year-old?”

“Well given your previous track record…”

Another box on the desk stopped her. "I'm just going to say this now," Chris said. "There are things missing from in here, but only because they link to the memories we don't know about." She took the box on her lap. "Also, since you worked so closely with us on the run-up, you can come to either of us whenever you want if you want to ask a question."

“Hmm, now you mention it, that is something I want to know more about.”

The men exchanged a look.

“Yeah, I helped prep things at the beginning, but I don’t remember anything beforehand. So, how exactly did I “work so closely” with the two of you to get this thing going?”

The look continued, morphing to one of concern. Eventually, Byakuya reached for his phone and searched for a number.

“Naegi, you’re going to have to fill in for Kirigiri now. Get her to come up here.”

As he hung up, Tomoko started to look even more concerned.

“What…is going on?”

 

* * *

 

"What have you got in there?" Ian looked at Shinjiro's box. Ian chose to share what he'd been told, and after checking, his own box appeared to have nothing of real relevance to it inside.

"School books, worksheets, and a refund for my college course. Nice of them."

"Where were you for that?"

"Somewhere in New York, film production."

"Suddenly that presentation you did for last year's exam makes a lot of sense."

"As well as that, driving licence, my old passport...yikes. Outside of film, I was not great in school apparently." Shinjiro picked up a couple of small hard drives. "I think we should give these a look when we get home."

“What are they?”

“Video projects, probably. Huh?”

“What?”

“Why’s Kirigiri coming up here? And what’s taking Tomoko so long?”

The three people left in the room came out through the doors to meet with Kyoko in the hallway.

“Shinjiro, Ian, you two can take the rest of the day off if you want. We’ll pass word onto Kizakura in your case.”

“But what about Tomoko?”

Holding her box, it was her turn to start shifting awkwardly.

Kyoko turned to the boys. “There are some…other things I have to talk about with her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The follow-up to this chapter should be out on Saturday.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyoko fills in the gaps that led to the Hope's Peak students arriving in Canada.  
> Alternative title: Kirigiri explains it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains one use of swearing (thought I may as well give a warning since I don't really use them in these works), and MAJOR spoilers for literally all of the DR Hope's Peak saga.

With most of the classrooms occupied, Kyoko had chosen to take Tomoko to the back of the gym in order to talk, despite the remaining members of the production’s cast rehearsing on the stage. She did want to do this somewhere more private like her clubhouse room, but thought it would just be daunting for Tomoko, given the things she was going to discuss with her.

While waiting for Kyoko to think of what she was going to say, she noticed that director Alejandro was filling in for Ian’s role while he took the day off. For now, however, he was on the phone with somebody, not paying any attention to the acting on stage.

“Fukuhara-san.”

She turned her attention back to Kyoko, whose expression was its usual stoic one. She was now holding a flask of tea, just like last year. She passed a cup to Tomoko, who thanked her for it.

“So I’m assuming you remember the things we talked about last year during the investigations.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I’m afraid it was a lie.” Kyoko closed her eyes. “Not about the events themselves – they did all happen in reality – but I already knew about everything.”

“What?” Tomoko stopped. “Actually, never mind, I should have known it was possible. But why lie about that?”

“As I told you the first time, I trusted that you could keep it from everyone else. But there was another reason.”

“Which I’m guessing is yet another thing you can’t tell me?”

“Actually, I can. And I will, once I’ve told you the rest of the events surrounding the mystery.”

“Oh, well, that’s a pleasant change.”

“So, you may have heard from some of the other students about the reasoning we all came here.”

“It was financial issues relating to the academy, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but not the technical reason. However it does play a factor in it. Some of the resources you gathered for me last year detailed it.”

“Oh, right, that reminds me. I found some of them.” Tomoko unzipped her bag and removed the two manga novels. “Don’t know why. I thought you had them.”

“I did. I’ve been looking for them for a while now.” She took the books and put them onto her lap. “But that isn’t what we were discussing. Even though their contents do link to the rest of the story. Did you read either of them?”

“I started the one about the Biggest, Most Tragic…uh...Most…the long one. Haven’t read any of the other one.”

“Well, before any of us came to Hope’s Peak Academy, there were financial problems, not coming from a lack of funding, but a disappearance. The academy used to rely on the tuition fees of the Reserve Course to fund Ultimate research, but most of these funds went missing, nobody aware of what it led to, leading to Yukizome-san and two friends from her class investigating.”

“And…what did it lead to?”

“The Hope Cultivation Plan. Also known as the Izuru Kamukura Project, named after the academy’s founder. An experiment intended to create artificial hope in normal students. The purpose was to create a student with every talent, the Super High School Level Hope, and they did so using one of the Reserve Course students. Every measure was taken to keep the nature of this experiment a secret, including faking the expulsion of the subject. Their entire memory was supposedly erased, as was, apparently, his emotions.” Kyoko paused to glance over at the drama group. “That subject…was Hajime Hinata.”

“ _What_?!” Tomoko yelled and stood up from her seat, causing the books to fall from Kyoko’s lap and Alejandro casting a quick glance in the girls’ direction.

“B-but how is that possible? I mean, he remembers everything! Unless that’s fake.”

“I wasn’t in his class, so there’s no way to tell exactly what was real. But like before, that isn’t the main issue. Continuing on,” Tomoko sat back down again, “it started not long after an incident involving two others from the Reserve Course, known as the Twilight Syndrome Murder Case.”

“I remember seeing that in the news over here, albeit briefly.”

“In the year that my class came to the academy, there was another series of killings, this time involving the Student Council and Izuru Kamukura. Only the Student Council President and Kamukura survived, but the President was later killed by another student. This series of events, along with the truth about the Izuru Kamukura project, was broadcast to the Reserve Course, which caused them to break into the main building and kill the main course students.”

“Except for your class and Hinata-kun’s. I hope. Otherwise…”

“My classmates and I were holed into an old school building along with the principal in order to protect us, while the 77th Class escaped.”

“Oh, okay that’s-”

“ _But_ …things are more complicated than that.” Kyoko cut her off. “The Student Council killing game, involving Kamukura, and the broadcast to the Reserve Course…this was all committed by one of our own. Junko Enoshima.”

“Enoshima-san did something like that?”

“Again, her motives are too complex for me to explain here. She along with Ikusaba-san worked together to accomplish all this, and eventually start the event that would later become known as the Biggest, Most Tragic, Most Despair Inducing Event in Human History, otherwise known as the Tragedy. Havoc and disorder broke out everywhere – people killed not for any reason, but for the sake of murder, and uncontrollable acts of violence occurred all over the world. Or at least, that’s what we thought at the time.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember anything like that happening over here. How come?”

“I’m not sure. That’s something else I need to look at. But anyway, there was something else she did at Hope’s Peak before the Tragedy took off. Involving the 77th Class.”

Tomoko gulped nervously. She didn’t like where this was going.

“I assume you’ve met Mitarai-kun before, the former SHSL Animator. Enoshima-san took advantage of his talent and forced him to make a series of videos for her. One of them, a Suicide Video, was the video sent to the Reserve Course which led to their mass suicide. The other, a Despair Video, was intended to cause those who saw it to feel an intense hunger for despair, and a worship of Enoshima-san. This video was also used to turn the 77th Class into part of the SHSL Despair – the terrorist group founded by Enoshima-san. They, along with Yukizome-san, faked their own deaths in order to be taken off the protection list.”

“So…all sixteen of them were part of Enoshima-san’s group?”

“Not quite. Mitarai-kun ran away, and Nanami-san was murdered by Enoshima-san.”

Tomoko just stared at Kyoko in pure horror, at a total loss for words, causing her to continue.

“The footage of her death was shown to her classmates in order to drive them to Despair.”

Tomoko cleared her throat, forcing herself to say something. “S-so, that’s what happened to them. And what about you?”

Once more, she looked at the drama group, too engrossed in their production to pay either of them a moment of attention. But just to be on the safe side…

“We should talk about this in the clubhouse.”

…

The further explanation Kyoko had given her on the way up still rang in her head.

Junko and Mukuro had also been sealed into the old school building with their classmates, and roughly a year afterwards, they erased their classmates’ memories and forced them into another killing game. Mukuro had taken over the role of Junko in the game, only to be betrayed, and in the end only six survivors emerged. They were rescued by an organisation called Future Foundation, which also included Chisa, Kizakura, Miaya, Daisaku from the supermarket, and Kyosuke from the rebuilt Hope’s Peak. Their role was to rebuild the world…or rather, nation, after the Tragedy occurred.

While part of Future Foundation, Makoto had found the 77th Class, at the time referred to as the Remnants of Despair, and taken them in in an attempt to rehabilitate them and restore them to their former selves, using something called the Neo World Program. The Program had created avatars of the Remnant’s former selves and put them onto an island in order to remove the despair in them – an AI version of Chiaki was also added to help the process. However, Izuru Kamukura had hijacked the program with a virus, allowing an AI of Junko to start another killing game among them. Even though five people survived the killing game, all fifteen remaining 77th Class members were revived as their former selves.

In the meantime, however, a brainwashed Chisa had used the videos left behind by Junko to start a killing game with Makoto, Hina and thirteen of the branch leaders in Future Foundation. Only Kyosuke, Ryota, Makoto and Hina technically survived the game, but Kyoko had been saved posthumously by Seiko. All the explaining had been very hard for Tomoko to take in easily, most of it being utterly incomprehensible to her.

And so, here she was, staring down at a folder of pictures. Each of them showed a scene of death more horrific than the previous, or so it felt.

“So just to clarify…Hinata-kun from the talentless Reserve Course is the most gifted of all Hope’s Peak students, the best friend of my kinda-but-not-really brother is responsible for the death of his kinda-but-not-really girlfriend, and _my_ best friend is a former…terrorist. Among other things.”

“Yes.”

Having gotten used to the images of the Future Foundation leaders being stabbed or poisoned, she turned the page of the folder. Only to slam it shut the moment she caught a glimpse of a crushed Junko. She quickly pushed the folder back to Kyoko.

“Right, I think that’s enough of that.” Tomoko hunched into herself. “W-woah. This is…a fuck ton to take in at once.”

“I understand that, and I know how confusing it must be for you. However, passing it on to you may be the key to restoring some of your memories.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Okay, yeah, I worked with Chris and Togami-kun a little to make this happen, but it was completely inconsequential. I mean, anyone can label underwear!”

“That’s wrong.”

She straightened up and looked back at the detective in more confusion. “Huh? How do you mean that?”

Kyoko was quiet for a moment, possibly thinking of how to respond. “Naturally, your boss was the one who insisted the rehabilitation plan get made into a TV series during your first year. But you had the most important role of the three.”

“For God’s sake, everyone I’ve met says that! The intern has to make sure everything’s safe--”

“No, not that.”

Tomoko rested her head on her hand, thinking about everything. “Okay, so I apparently had the most important role, for a rehabilitation project, for dead students…”

A moment of silence.

“You don’t mean…”

“In other words…”

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day off had been relatively harmless for the two boys. After they went through their boxes and Ian passed on word of his past, they both sat down at the sofa, going through the memory stick Shinjiro was given. About ten short films and a collection of essays, almost definitely from college, was all that was on there.

“Woah. That was really good. Like, _really_ good.”

“Thank you. I mean, it’s no Spielberg quality, but I appreciate it.”

“I don’t know if you remember it, but did the whole love of anime lead to the film thing?”

“I think it was. Guess it would make sense.”

Shinjiro kept looking through the files to see if there were any other things to watch. “Tomoko needs to see these when she gets back.”

They glanced at the clock. “She sure is taking her time with Kyoko. Must be big.”

A sudden crash from the hallway, almost made Shinjiro drop the laptop off his lap. “What the hell?”

“GUESS WHAAAT!!” Leon burst through the front door, sliding into the main room.

“Hey! I thought we locked that door!”

“You did, but I got a key cut over the summer. Anyway, GUESS WHAAAT!!”

Neither of his friends wanted anything to do with Leon’s antics, at least for the rest of the day. But they knew by now that Leon was too relentless and hot-headed for them to do anything about it. “Ugh, fine, what? Oh, okay.”

Now with a Date Ticket in his hand, there was a grin on his face bigger than any before. “I finally did it! I’m goin’ on a date with Sayaka-chan!” “Huh. Thought it would take a lot more pushing.”

“Well, have fun.” Shinjiro pressed play on the computer again.

“Wha-- that’s it?! You’re not happy for me?!”

“Oh, we are,” Ian looked back at him. “We just haven’t had the best day today.”

The three guys then turned back to the door when they heard more footsteps. They weren’t 100% sure which girl had arrived, until Shinjiro spotted the box under her arm. “Oh, hey Tomoko. Kuwata broke in so I don’t know…if…”

When she didn’t come into the lounge, Shinjiro set the laptop down and stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Tomoko? You okay?”

She didn’t answer him, instead continuing up the stairs and into her room, audibly locking the door behind her.

“Well? Is she joining us? I wanna pass on the good news.”

“I think she’s sick. I’d just leave her alone until she wants to talk.”

“Time of the month?”

“Goddamn it, Leon.”

…

Nothing in her box had been touched since she received it. And frankly, for now, she didn’t give a crap about it, after everything Kyoko had told her.

While the box lay at the foot of her bed, Tomoko fell on top of her mattress, her face being buried into her pillow.

With the final words from Kyoko replaying in her head like a nightmare.

_“The whole rehabilitation plan, reviving the deceased students…it was all your idea.”_


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ibuki notices something's wrong with Tomoko.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of me forgot to post this today since I've already started working on the final part of the series. But whatever, here you go.

Chisa opened the drawer to her desk and dropped her class roster inside. “Mioda-san, are you sure that Fukuhara-san is here?”

“Yeah, Ibuki saw Tomoko-chan come in with the rest of us, but she just went straight to the gym.”

“Well, alright, I’ll take your word for it. Now then, for today we ha--” she was cut off when she heard her mobile ringing, “One moment everyone.”

“Mioda-kun,” Kiyotaka tapped Ibuki on the shoulder. “Is everything alright? It’s unlike Fukuhara-kun to willingly avoid attending class.”

“Ibuki doesn’t know either.”

“I saw Shinjiro this morning,” Kitty joined the pair. “He didn’t say there were any problems.”

Before they could keep on pondering, Chisa set her phone down again. “Everyone, I hate to leave you again, but Naegi-kun needs me for a meeting. Feel free to do whatever you want!”

As Chisa left the room, Chiaki got the attention of her classmates. “I have an idea for something the girls could do. On our school trip all the girls got together and spent the day baking.”

“Ooh, yeah!”

“That sounds fun!”

“Ibuki agrees, but…” she snatched up her school bag, “we’re still missing one.”

 

* * *

 

Two former Total Drama contestants spent most of their time down in the gym area when they felt the need to skip out on class, which was most of the time – Duncan and Jo. Following their limited but relatively friendly interactions during All Stars, they’d become workout partners every time they were in there together. However today, they were too surprised to do any working out, instead distracted by Tomoko going non-stop at the punching bag.

Those who weren’t especially close to her, like those two, wouldn’t ever take her as the kind to be harbouring any real angry feelings, and such feelings tended to warrant wanting to punch a hole through something. They also wouldn’t see her as an overly athletic person, but at the same time not completely lacking any muscle or stamina. But beating the bag for minutes on end without (visibly) breaking a sweat? That was beyond their expectations.

After passing the twenty-minute point – and yes, the two were keeping count – she stepped back from the punching bag for longer than a microsecond and turned to Jo. “You got anything to drink?” There was a hint of fatigue in her voice, and not just from the exercise.

“Uh, here.” Jo unscrewed the lid off her water bottle and handed it over, watching as Tomoko drained half the bottle. “Is everything okay with you?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, you’re not usually the type who’d a) skip class, b) spend their free time in the gym, and c) both at once.”

“Things happen, Duncan.” She took another swig of water. “Things that aren’t any of your business.”

“To-mo-ko-chan~!”

The doors to the gym flew open, and Ibuki stood behind them. In her arms were a pair of aprons and headcloths, with a white powdery stain on the shirt & tie of her uniform.

“Huh,” Jo spoke up, glancing at the stain, “I _thought_ her hyper behaviour came from something like that.”

“No, silly, it’s flour! You really think they’d let us get drugs past the entrance hall?”

“I did once.” The three girls looked over at Duncan, not exactly surprised by his confession, but nonetheless…

“Well Ibuki doesn’t care about any of that!” She walked over towards Tomoko, forcing her away from the punching bag while pulling the gloves off her hands. “All she cares about right now is finding out what’s getting to Tomoko-chan!”

“Hey! What the…let go!”

The doors slammed closed behind the two of them, Ibuki dragging her further away from the gym on the off chance the other two were listening in.

“Ibuki, what are you doing? Can’t I just go back to venting my frustrations?”

“Ibuki’s been looking for you for ages! Chisa-chan left again for business reasons, so the class can do whatever they want!”

“So?”

“ _So_ , Ibuki and the rest of the girls are heading to the kitchen for a girl’s baking day! It was a real success on our school trip. It should be more...well, calming than whacking a punching bag all day.”

Tomoko hesitated. “I’m really not in the greatest mood, and before you ask, no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on! It’ll be fun! And in Ibuki’s opinion, you look like you need it.”

“Uh, well--”

“Great! Let’s go!”

Still with a firm hold on both her wrists, Ibuki dragged Tomoko out of the gym area, causing her to drop Jo’s water bottle, its contents spilling onto the floor.

 

* * *

 

By the time the two girls had got there, a few of the others were very far into their bakes. Mikan and Chiaki were making pastries, Hina and Sakura were watching over some doughnuts on the side, and Ibuki was making quite the questionable cake.

“Girl, what are you doin’?”

“The last time she took part in something like this, Ibuki tried making a cookie statue of her boobs which didn’t work out the best. Time for round two!”

Kitty glanced over her shoulder to get a better look at Ibuki’s…artwork. “Oh. Those are pretty big.” She put down a whisk she was holding and looked at what Tomoko was making. “What about you?”

“I’m trying to do a roll cake.” Her hands didn’t look as steady as they usually did, something which Kitty appeared to note. “It’s nothing really, just something that comes with 20 solid minutes of sparring.”

“Well the cake looks difficult to do without a steady hand. Let me know if you want a hand.”

“Sure.”

Returning to her own station, Kitty couldn’t tell whether the dull response was due to concentration or something else. But a loud crash from elsewhere caused her to lose her train of thought.

“Hey, guys!” Tess kicked the door open to the kitchen, carrying a stack of papers. Each one had the Hope’s Peak logo on the top, with her and someone else’s signatures on the bottom. “I have an announcement!”

The girls set down their cooking equipment and looked over.

“In the last week of this academic year, we will be hosting a school dance in the school gym!”

“We?”

“Maizono-san and I. She’s out today so I’m announcing it for her. Anyway, tickets cost only $15, and any money left over will be going straight back into the school. If you’re interested, feel free to take a letter!”

A few of the girls looked at one another, before everyone of them went up and took one.

Well, everyone except one.

“Tomoko? You don’t wanna go?”

“What? Oh, no, not really. It isn’t really my kind of--”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve said that before.”

“But you went to that Halloween party, right?”

“Hmmm…” Eventually, Ibuki took a second sheet, and walked back over to Tomoko. “Could you all give us a second? We’ll check on everyone’s food!”

While a couple left the kitchen themselves, it took Ibuki pushing the rest of them out in order to clear a space for her and Tomoko. Once the last girl, Hina, was shoved out the door, she closed the grate separating the kitchen from the rest of the dining hall, so she could have a private moment with Tomoko.

On that note, she still didn’t appear to have noticed everyone leaving, given she was still focused on icing whatever was in front of her. All for naught, it proved, when Ibuki took the piping bag out of her shaking hands – it wasn’t enough to see from the other end of the room, but up close was a different story.

“Hm? Ibuki? Where’d everyone go?”

“Outside. For a moment.”

When Tomoko still didn’t really understand what she meant, Ibuki sighed before continuing.

“Ibuki doesn’t know what’s wrong, and you probably don’t wanna talk about it. But, I’m not going to make you tell me if you don’t want to.”

Tomoko just looked at her, slightly concerned. “Are you…okay?”

“Yeah. I may not act like it here, but I went through an awful lot before I came here. Maybe it’s more than your problems, maybe it isn’t. But take it from me…it won’t do you any good if you wallow in despair over it. You need to do something to forget about it, even for a little.”

Both girls stood in silence for a while, with Tomoko’s eyes cast down at her feet, seriously taking her friend’s words to heart. Their silence was broken when the oven made a noise. Ibuki quickly ran to it, threw open the door and dropped tray after tray onto the worktops, until the oven was empty.

“But, hey, Ibuki’s not forcing you!” She pushed the second paper towards her, walking back towards the door and opening it for the other girls. “All done in here!”

One by one, the Class 3 girls filed back in, with Tess now back in her own classroom presumably. Each one of them started looking for their respective food items, while Tomoko just watched them.

For the longest time, the only thing on her mind had been what Kyoko told her the other day. Now Ibuki’s advice had taken its place as she looked at the dance letter.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two things the student body have been waiting for happen on the same evening: one potential couple appears ready to become a reality; another long-standing couple is about to become something more...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know the second couple in question have had next to no part in this series, but it had to happen eventually, let's face it.

“I’m still not sure this is the best idea. What’s the point in going if you’re not going to be fully with it?”

“This isn’t for me. It’s to support Ian and Tess. Besides, if his performance is anywhere near as good as it was last year, it should be promising.”

Probably due to the more modern style of the production, there were more people present to watch it. Despite both of them initially wanting to come along, it turned out the day of Leon and Sayaka’s date was the same day as the production, leaving Tomoko & Shinjiro alone.

“Hopefully with this and the dance in a couple days, we should finally have a proper chance to forget about…you-know-what.”

“Yeah. Fingers crossed.” She abruptly stopped walking, causing Shinjiro to bump into her.

“What?”

In the corner, Tomoko noticed Byakuya along with Toko and Komaru. There was something extra she’d been meaning to ask him, something that Kyoko most likely wouldn’t have known anything about. She nudged her brother as they got closer to the gym doors.

“You go ahead and get our seats. I need to deal with something quickly.”

Pushing past two familiar looking relatives of one of the contestants, Tomoko was eventually able to catch up to Byakuya. Ignoring the dirty look from Toko, she tapped him hard on the shoulder.

“Look, sorry Fukawa-san, but I can’t find Chris and I need to ask him something about this place.”

“F-fine, whatever. I’ll be waiting right here.”

The two moved a little away from Toko, muttering about “love rival” or something. “Okay, there’s something that occurred to me not too long ago, and I doubt that Kirigiri-san would’ve been able to answer it.”

“What?”

"Where'd all the money come from? After the Aftermath and the school festival, and with everything you and Chris – okay, mostly Chris – spent the money on, there can't have been anything left in the budget for all those Date Ticket things. And then food, housing, insurance _for_ the housing..."

Byakuya stopped her before she could continue. "Most of the school festival money went to the Date Tickets, but yes, we, uh, _he_ technically ran out of our saved money in January. Not to mention there was next to nothing at the beginning."

"Then where the hell?"

He glanced off to the side and sighed. "The funding for the houses and the insurance, and everything after we ran out, came from Asahina’s boss."

“Asahina-san’s?”

“In other words, your father.”

The noises of the people filing in behind them was lost on Tomoko in that moment.

“Wh…what…?”

Byakuya didn’t respond.

“B-but…I thought what with the--” she cut herself off as a few people got a little too close behind her, dropping her voice to a whisper, “…with the Tragedy he and mom would’ve died.”

“No. Like most other Hope’s Peak alumni, they joined the Future Foundation. I assume Kirigiri told you about Future Foundation?”

“She did.”

“Your mother, Emiko, became the leader of Branch 13 – as I said, Asahina’s branch. Once the Tragedy was, for the most part, resolved, their branch was left with less work. With Emiko focused on the Tragedy, Nobuharu chose to make vast contributions to help fund not only the Japanese Hope’s Peak, but this one.”

“But…why though? I mean, it’s been years since I’ve last seen him or mom!”

“I don’t know that either. Likely they discovered your involvement with the project and wanted to help in some way.”

“Tomoko! You coming yet?”

Tomoko went to continue interrogating Byakuya, only to find he’d walked away from the gym doors, Toko in hot pursuit. Sighing, she returned to where her brother was stood.

“What’s up with you? You remember something?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she noted Hina walking towards a seat at the opposite end, giving Tomoko a wave as they made eye contact.

“I’ll probably explain later.”

“Ah, man…” Cody in the meantime glanced from behind the curtains. “Looks like it’s gonna be a full house.”

The geek then felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Alejandro.

“Oh, is there a problem?”

“If it’s no trouble, could you pass a message onto the rest of the cast and crew?”

 

* * *

 

Leon had been thinking over countless ideas for this date with Sayaka. He’d wanted to go for something outside of the school gates, not too many additional costs beyond the Date Ticket, and something the two of them would like. He’d spotted a special film screening somewhere in Toronto of some 70s musical, a genre which he instantly connected with Sayaka.

The two were in the far back of the cinema, right in the middle with the perfect view of the screen. Sayaka had a large bag of popcorn on her lap, while Leon held two fully loaded hotdogs. And yes, they were both his.

Despite enjoying the film, neither one of the pair was 100% enjoying the date itself. Something which Sayaka voiced to her friend.

“Um, not that I don’t like your film choice,” she whispered, “but I’m not sure I can say the same for the date itself.”

“Hm?” Leon turned to her with a mouthful of hotdog.

“It just changes the mood, you know? Not being able to talk with the people you’re with.”

“Well this particular audience doesn’t seem to have any problems with doing so.” He pointed one of the hotdogs in the direction of a group of friends who thought they were at a sleepover instead of a cinema, while simultaneously pointing the other half-eaten one towards a couple making out further down the row of seats, quite possibly louder than the group.

“I can’t hear what’s going on!” Leon groaned. “Why didn’t I choose to have the date at the cinema by the school?”

“Didn’t Ian-kun recommend this film?”

“Yeah, turns out he’s something of a fan of musicals and this is one of the best, according to him.”

“I assume he’s also the theatre type too, given he’s been in both the plays.”

Leon was about to reply but stopped short when realisation hit him. “Oh, damn. That was tonight wasn’t it?”

“I think it was.”

“Man, I really wanted to see it! I couldn’t catch all of the one from last year.”

Another person in front of them had their phone go off, taking the time to answer it as loudly as possible.

“You know, we should just go see that instead.”

“Won’t we miss the end of the film?”

“No worries. Shinji says that Hara has it on DVD, and I can sing some of it on the way back.” He made a move to stand up and sprint down the steps, only to freeze in a crouching position and turn back to Sayaka. “Wait. Are you sure you wanna up and leave?”

“It’s alright, really. I appreciate you inviting me, but I’d rather we do something where we can talk a little more.”

“Hm. Fair enough. Not to mention…” They cast another look towards the couple making out in the corner.

And both teens fled for the door, ignoring the annoyed look from the guy whose popcorn Leon knocked over.

…

The pair slowly pushed the back door open to the gymnasium, being sure not to make any noise, and crept through the rows of seats until they found the twins. An empty seat was on either side of them. “Oh, Kuwata-kun and Maizono-san. I thought you weren’t going to be here for the show.”

“No way I’d miss my bro steal the show!”

“But what about the movie?” Shinjiro asked.

“Ehh, it was a load of crap. Cheesy as hell.”

Sayaka leaned in to Tomoko after sitting down beside her. “You should have heard him singing along to the music.” Despite everything, this garnered a small quiet laugh from Tomoko, mainly because she could actually imagine him belting out the tunes from Grease. Somehow.

“So, how late are we?”

“Not very. Now shut up, I can’t concentrate on what’s happening.”

The remainder of the show was relatively easy for the two to pick up, despite missing a chunk of the details. The four noticed Ian looking out at them midway through, obviously surprised that they were no longer on their date. And by taking one look at their faces, the twins noticed that Leon and Sayaka appeared to be having fun watching it…what they didn’t know, they enjoyed it more than the film.

“Those two were really good!” As the full cast came out at the end, Sayaka reached down for her handbag, Leon doing the same with his rucksack.

“Alright, now to head home, congratulate Ian, start practicing our song for the dance and--”

“Excuse me everybody, may I have your attention for just a moment?”

All heads both on and off the stage immediately turned to Alejandro, who was now holding the microphone.

“Oh great, here comes the ten-minute Oscar speech from the director.”

“First off, I wish to start by thanking you all for coming to watch our production of Be More Chill, and for supporting us.” Applause. “And of course, to all the actors who took part, the behind-the-scenes crew, and of course, my co-director and long-time girlfriend Heather!”

“There’s no way he can drag this out, is there? Why can’t we just get to rehearsing?”

“Shh!” The four looked back to Alejandro.

“Now, as the cast up here with me will remember,” he turned to face them, “I asked them not to do anything stupid when I come up and give my speech. I think it’s about time I explain.

“The cast will probably be aware of how,” he cleared his throat, “painful rehearsals could get. And if it weren’t for this woman up here with me, I likely would have quit long ago.” This garnered a couple laughs. “This woman has been many things to me since I first met her: a master strategist, a strong opponent…and now…”

He stopped to glance at Cody, who for some reason was giving him an eager thumbs-up. Gulping and nodding, he reached into his back pocket.

“Oh God, is this going where I think it’s going?”

The answer turned out to be yes, when Alejandro revealed a small box and got down onto one knee in front of Heather.

“…and now I wish to add one more title to the list.”

The audience erupted into murmurs and squees – Sierra’s being the loudest of all of them.

“Heather Zhao, _¿quieres casarte conmigo?_ ”

Thanks to the flood of applause and screaming so high-pitched that some of the windows in the gym possibly cracked, nobody could hear Heather’s response. But if the fact that Heather & Alejandro were now kissing on the floor was anything to go by, it was a yes.

Everyone in the audience, whether they liked the couple or not, couldn’t help but be happy for them both, and everyone was on their feet cheering – additionally snapping photos in Sierra and Mahiru’s cases.

“It’s about darn time!”

“Eeeee! I knew it, I knew it!”

“Good on you guys!”

“Wait, we’re performing at the dance?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearing the end of this one, but chances are updates won't be as frequent anymore, what with exams on the way...still, I'll try.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of the school dance.  
> Tomoko makes a decision on what she wants to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 should be out within a few days.

“Guys, could we possibly go a little faster? I need to help Sayaka get ready for everyone else showing up. There’s Beardo’s deck, the lighting...”

“You know you can just go ahead without us?”

The dance hadn’t called for full-on formal attire, more of a formal-casual type outfit. While Shinjiro didn’t look all that different from normal, Ian had swapped his own tee for a button-up and tie while keeping the jeans. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Tess was in a dark dress that ended just above her knees, with a pair of matching wedges.

“So much for informal.”

“Whatever. Anywho, if you really want to keep me waiting, then you can help carry the last few drinks down to the gym.”

“Fine. Let’s go.” Ian and Shinjiro went down to the garage, while Tess took note of the silence from inside Tomoko’s room. Curious, she pushed the door open, where said intern was making zero effort to prepare herself. Instead, she was sat on her bed reading one of her mangas, an open journal and pen out beside her. Despite the shouting from Tess’ part, she didn’t appear to have noticed.

“Hey Tomoko, whatcha doing?”

“Oh, Tess. You haven’t left for the dance already?”

“Still waiting on the guys to finish up. And you.” She sat on her bed. “You’re…really not going dressed in that, are you?”

“Nope.” She went straight back to her book. “Even if I did want to go, I don’t have anything appropriate for the occasion. You can even check for yourself.”

“Wait, so you aren’t coming at all?”

“I thought about it, but decided no.”

“But why? It’ll be great! Maizono-san and I put so much into it!”

“I don’t doubt it, but…the mood hasn’t been the greatest for weeks.”

“I’ve noticed. Like many others, I have no clue what caused this sudden change, but I want to leave you with something just in case. Come on.”

Tess stood up and pulled Tomoko into her own room, pushing her onto her bed this time. She began to root through her wardrobe until she found the particular item she was after.

“Here. Give this a try.”

It was a straight white dress that would end below Tomoko’s knees, with a belt made of black material complete with white stitching.

“I’m not sure it’ll fit if I’m honest, given you’re kinda lacking in the chest department, but you have to admit,” she held the dress up in front of her, “you really suit it.”

Looking at herself in the mirror, Tomoko couldn’t help but agree. “No. It’s fine. But like I said, I don’t know if I want to go.”

“Nobody’s forcing you to, but believe me, it’ll do a lot of good. Even if when you get back the sour mood returns, it’ll have hopefully helped you forget it for a few hours.”

“That’s a good point, I guess.”

“It’s your call. Oh, and just in case, you may need this to fill it out...” Tess started rooting in one of her drawers, coming out with a skin coloured bra. No, wait...

“Fake breasts. How insecure do you think I am about my cup size?”

“I don’t! It’s the best way to get the dress to fit.”

“Okay then. Thanks, Tess.” Tomoko took the dress and started walking towards the door, pausing. “Wait. Why do _you_ have fake breasts? You don’t...”

“No, they’re real.” She slid off the straps of her own dress. “Wanna check for yourself?”

“Ugh, no. Forget I asked. I’ll take your word for it.”

Laughing, Tess laid the dress beside Tomoko and walked to the door. “Well, better finish up. Hope to see you there.”

 

* * *

 

In the meantime, at the shared house of Kiyotaka/Mondo/Chihiro, the two latter boys had managed to convince Kiyotaka to come with them to the dance, despite his earlier reluctance. Following the Halloween party, he hadn’t been that willing to attend any more.

Still not prepared to fully commit to the party atmosphere, Kiyotaka just put himself in his previous school uniform - the wholly white one with the black knee boots, only without the extra pins adorning it. The other two had gone for clothes which better suited the occasion, while still going with their normal style.

“I told ya bro, it’s school run, so there shouldn’t be any drinking this time!”

“Unless someone spikes the punch,” Chihiro muttered under his breath. “And…everybody else is going to be in attendance?”

“Well, maybe not _everyone_. But hey, it was the only way we could convince ya to come along.”

“Looks like one of the planners is running a little too late.” Chihiro pointed to Tess, running for the school with a crate of sodas under each arm. Shinjiro and Ian pursued carrying the same thing, but it was just those three.

“Hey!” Mondo yelled at them. “No Fukuhara behind yer?”

“Nope! She doesn’t want to come!” They continued running away, which made the other group slightly worried.

“Since when does Fukuhara-san not involve herself with school activities?”

“She has been rather upset about something for a long time now, even though she refuses to talk about it with anybody. But not really as in, _upset_ upset, more like she’s trying to distance herself from everyone.”

“In that case, bro,” Mondo pushed Kiyotaka lightly in the back, “you should do something about it.”

“Like what? I don’t even know what’s been troubling her.”

“Just ask her to go to this dance with ya!”

“Wh- what? But we aren’t even a couple!”

“We know that, and so does she, and the others. Even though Mioda don’t wanna admit it.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with going as just friends.”

“And you _are_ her friend, ain’t ya?”

“Well, yes…”

“Then _as_ her friend, you should try and convince her to come along.”

Kiyotaka appeared to understand what his friends were telling him, but… “Wouldn’t it seem a little out of nowhere?”

“Oh, who cares? Just go!”

“Go where?”

The three boys looked over to the source of the voice who, much to their surprise, turned out to be Tomoko. She was stood in Tess’ white dress she’d offered her.

“Oh, Fukuhara-kun!”

“Thought you weren’t gonna be comin’.”

“Yeah, well, I had a change of heart thanks to someone…unexpected, let’s say.”

“Well,” Chihiro pulled on Mondo’s arm. “The two of us will go ahead. You two can take your time catching up. See you inside!”

They ran for the hills, leaving Tomoko and Kiyotaka alone. Tomoko looked incredibly awkward, more so than her friend if that was even possible, probably still from her situation, but the awkwardness dissipated when she saw Kiyotaka’s wardrobe choices.

“You’re wearing your old uniform to a dance?”

“This is me you’re talking about. I have ten copies of my uniform!”

“And…nothing else?”

“Well, nothing that would suit the occasion, at least.”

“Heh, you and me both. This isn’t even my dress.”

“I, uh, think you look nice in it, though.”

“Oh, thank you. It doesn’t look weird, does it?”

“Of course not. Although it is larger than I expected at the to--”

“Enough said. Let’s just go have fun.”

 

* * *

 

When the two of them got inside, about half of the school’s population were already there. Mondo and Chihiro hadn’t gone into the main part of the gym yet, clearly wanting to say something.

“Is everything alright? Aren’t we going in?”

“Not exactly. Fukuhara’s stayin’ with us, you’re goin’ to her group.”

“Why?”

“Ishimaru-kun, you need to mingle with the others. Just because this isn’t your sort of thing doesn’t mean you should stick with us for all of it.”

Kiyotaka looked genuinely hurt by Chihiro’s statement, but was reassured when Tomoko stepped in. “It’s fine. You know my lot already, and it’ll be something different.”

“Alright then. If you insist.” Kiyotaka made his way over to the group, who had also noticed Tomoko’s surprising presence.

Leon and Ibuki, like Shinjiro, were no different from the norm; Kitty wore a short red top with a leather jacket and pleather skirt; and Sayaka was in a blue dress patterned with green & pink flowers.

For a little while, Ibuki and Kitty went off with Ian, while Kiyotaka tagged along with Shinjiro, Leon and Sayaka. At first this confused Kiyotaka, given the three boys were always a unit, until Shinjiro explained.

“It’s to stop the two girls from bothering you about coupling up with my sister.”

“Ah. Well, I appreciate that.”

As he began talking more with his former classmate, Sayaka glanced over at Tess, now helping Beardo with something, and smiled.

Noticing the change in groups from that lot, Tess smiled back. _This dance was going to be great._


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of the dance.  
> Tomoko has a special talk with Chiaki, Operation LeoSaya comes to light, and another operation may have started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, the bit I wrote with Tomoko/Chiaki is the thing in this entire series I'm proudest of.

Naturally, not everyone had wanted to come along, but the turnout for the event was still good. All the tech was now up and running, and those present were taking the opportunity to make song requests for further down the line. As with the beach party in their first year, pizzas had been ordered en masse for everyone, but until then it was a matter of waiting for them to arrive.

From the looks of things, the original friendship groups in which everyone had arrived were all but dissolved. Now, Chihiro was talking with Kazuichi (and technically B, but whatever), Mondo had joined Brick (since he’d come alone, with Jo and Lightning having not come with), and Tomoko was in a small group with Leshawna, Bridgette, Gwen and Sayaka. The rest of her usual group was still split into two.

The temporary dance floor was full, still with the odd straggler hiding on the sides, and in the dead centre of it all were the to-be-wed Aleheather. Not necessarily for the dancing, but more due to being hounded by the others.

“Honestly, these people hate them one moment, now they’ll do anything for an invite to the wedding.” Tomoko’s group of girls were all wholly disinterested in the couple now, Leshawna most of all.

“I don’t think this’ll ever blow over.”

“Do you think this means they’ll be leaving the school?”

“One can hope, girl.” Leshawna, Bridgette and Gwen all laughed and drunk to that statement. And as impartial to the pair as she was, having never been at the receiving end of their scheming, Tomoko found herself agreeing.

It was then that her attention was drawn fully away from both groups, when she spotted Chiaki sat off to the side.

She was slouched in one of the chairs, dressed in her usual outfit and engrossed in a video game as usual. Normally this wouldn’t be something she’d really be bothered about because…it was Chiaki. The concerning part was that she was sat alone, and all of her classmates were in groups somewhere else, as though she wasn’t there. Tomoko passed her empty cup to one of them and approached the gamer.

“Nanami-san? Is everything okay?”

“…”

“Nanami-san?”

“Hm? Oh, Fukuhara-san.”

“Why aren’t you out there having fun with all your classmates? Okay, sure, this isn’t really your…thing either, but still.”

Chiaki sighed and pocketed her games console. “I just don’t feel like they want me around right now.” Her eyes were cast down at her feet, her hands messing with the zip of her hoodie.

Tomoko took the seat beside her. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s just, sometimes when I want to talk with one of them, they’ll suddenly stop what they’re doing, act all weird. Heck, sometimes they’ll walk away from me, or ignore me.”

Tomoko was quiet as she continued talking. She looked from Chiaki to the various groups of 77th Class students. They all looked like they were having fun, laughing and drinking.

“It’s like they’re hiding something…like they all feel guilty for something.”

Things finally clicked for Tomoko. Chiaki was the only member of her class who had actually died, while the rest retained full memory of previous events. And something must have happened relating to the Tragedy recently which is causing them to feel guiltier over what went on in Japan. Something she’d have to ask Kyoko about when she found the time.

But for now, she had bigger problems to deal with. Like how to comfort Chiaki without accidentally giving away the truth.

“Look, Nanami-san. I’m not incredibly close to all of your former classmates. And you too, the more I think about it. So I can’t understand any problems, tensions or whatever that may exist between all of you. But, I will say this. There’s no reason, from what I’ve heard, for anyone of your friends to hate you. You’re loyal, caring, and want nothing more than for everyone to get along, and you’ll do whatever you can to make it happen. Whenever someone’s feeling down, or there’s a low mood, the very fact that you’re there is a ray of hope for us, and especially them.”

She hesitated before adding. “They’d be lost without you.”

Chiaki paused her game to finally look at Tomoko.

“And if they are hiding something because of you, they’re the kind of people who’d tell you. They may have a big secret, sure, but if you ask me, you worrying yourself about it this far is what’s causing you to be separated from them. You want the best for them, they want the best for you. And the only way you can get that is by going back to them and enjoying yourself. And then once the night’s done, if you really feel the need, ask them about what you think’s going on.”

A small smile finally made its way onto Chiaki’s face. “Maybe you’re right.” She stood up and put the console away. “Thank you, Fukuhara-san.”

Before she could respond, she felt Chiaki wrapping her arms around her briefly, almost immediately running towards her classmates. And as she did, she was quickly welcomed into the group, something Tomoko couldn’t help but smile at.

“Hey,” Ian came over from the direction of the DJ sound system. “I’ve put in the requests.”

“Requests?”

“For Leon’s dance with Sayaka. He picked the song, and I put in another one right before. That way we’ll be able to tell when it’s about to come along.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“We do the set piece on the stage.”

“Wouldn’t Kuwata make us do that anyway?”

…

The plan to split the normal groups apart had long but fallen apart, as the majority of people at the dance were with their closer friends on the dancefloor – the only exception was Tess, who was stood beside Beardo’s mixing deck.

“So which song are we waiting for?” Tomoko half-yelled-half-asked Ian.

“Believe me, you’ll know it when you hear it. It should be coming up after this one.”

Sure enough, the rock song faded into a reggaeton type tune. And from the opening guitar bit, there was a collection of whoops and groans. Leon, however, went deathly silent.

“Oh, great.” The three of his bandmates walked over to him. “Come on!”

“I-I-I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Who the hell _are_ you now?”

“Hey, Maizono-san!” Tomoko yelled over the music to Sayaka, still in a group with the Total Drama girls. “Can I borrow you a second?”

She walked over, politely pushing past other students who had started to (awfully, in most cases) belt out the song. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, you and Kuwata-kun appear to have gotten a bit closer this year…”

“I guess. I think his character changed a little too.”

“So, I thought you might want to dance together.” Tomoko leaned in towards her ear. “He’s just too nervous to ask right now.”

“Definitely not in character for him.” She looked over at him, who had clocked in to what Tomoko was trying to do. “Okay then.”

“Knock him dead.”

As the music kicked in, the two began dancing, going further than the simple side to side that everyone else was doing, instead launching into a full salsa type routine. The energy and distance covered between the two pushed them away from their respective groups, and very nearly drawing people’s attention away from the engaged.

Eventually coming to a slower point in the middle of a large crowd, Leon’s personality had clearly escalated back into boisterous, hot-headed, freshman year Leon. “I didn’t know you could dance like this, Kuwata-kun,” Sayaka said, honestly impressed at his hidden skill.

“Well, I’ve been practicing. Those celebrity dance shows aren’t as lame as you might think.”

Sayaka giggled a little. “Is this one of those moments where I find out you’ve been doing it, just so you could ask me to dance at the end of the year?”

“…heh, Naegi was right. You really do have great intuition. Yeah. See, I like you, Maizono-chan. The date, the dancing…the awkwardness…it’s because I wanna go out with you. And I wanted to make a better impression than in Japan.”

They both continued to dance in silence a little while longer, when Sayaka leaned in closer, her lips barely touching Leon’s cheek. She pulled away to see he was completely red, another sight she couldn’t help laughing at.

“I like you too, Leon-kun, and I’d love to go out with you too. Oh!”

At that moment, Leon spun her round and dipped her. Seconds later, the music was drowned out by applause and wolf-whistling, as Leon and Sayaka began pulling a Geoff and Bridgette.

“Well, our work is finally done.”

“Alright, quit making out, we have a piece to perform.” Quickly apologising to Sayaka, Shinjiro wrenched the two apart and dragged Leon up to the stage with the rest of them.

…

On the tail end of Punk Division’s performance, there were roughly ten minutes left until everything had to be cleared away. As a result, Tess had called for a final slow dance. As expected, Sayaka & Leon and Heather & Alejandro were on the floor together, as were a couple of the other couples.

Tomoko was one of the singletons off to the side without a partner, looking at the parings on the floor – Hajime & Chiaki, Fuyuhiko & Peko, Harold & Leshawna, even Brody and MacArthur somehow. In the meantime, the people on the side weren’t worth acknowledging really – Kazuichi on the verge of crying into his punch over Sonia & Gundam, Scott attempting to convince Courtney to dance “for old times sake”, Anne Maria hiding from Ezekiel…and so on.

“Ibuki?” Said musician appeared beside her friend. “You aren’t going up there with the Imposter or someone?”

“Slow dancing isn’t Ibuki’s thing.”

“Fair enough.”

“And Tomoko-chan?”

“Why would I? I don’t have anyone.”

“That’s what you think.” She pointed towards Mondo’s trio, who were also off to the side. The biker was nudging Kiyotaka, nodding towards the two girls.

“Don’t tell me you set this up…”

“Of course not!”

Kiyotaka, now beside them, cleared his throat. “E-excuse me, Fukuhara-kun? I was wondering if you would…um, i-if you…”

He nervously glanced to Mondo, who held a thumb up and had a big grin. Kiyotaka gulped and turned back to the girls.

“Would you d-do me the…w-would you…never mind.” Instead of stumbling over his words any further, he just offered a hand to Tomoko while trying to shield the blush on his face.

At that moment, the instrumental slow-dance music that Beardo had most likely put together himself, transitioned into an existing song. One that Ibuki started humming along to…whether genuinely or to mess with Tomoko, she didn’t know.

“Uh, well, okay then.”

Tomoko took Kiyotaka’s hand and the two shared embarrassed smiles as they walked to the dancefloor – and where she once stood, Kitty took her place.

“I thought you’d be out there with the Imposter. Why’d you turn him…what?”

“Look. It’s happening!”

“What is?” She looked over at the pair. “Aww!”

“Yer welcome.” Mondo walked over to the girls. “If I’m bein’ honest with you, he’d been wantin’ to do that for weeks.” The girls started gasping, until Mondo continued. “As friends. Hey, don’t look so disappointed!”

While this went on, Tomoko was trying to do two things at once – ignore the exchange between the pair’s closest friends, and do anything possible to prevent herself from becoming more embarrassed. While the first thing was easier than expected, the second not so much.

Neither Tomoko or Kiyotaka could make eye contact in this situation, so Kiyotaka glanced off to the side while Tomoko kept her eyes on his chest area. But despite the awkwardness that created the moment (and was still evident within it), they were smiling.

Within their group, the attention was turned away from Aleheather and LeoSaya momentarily.

And not that they could see it, Leon and Sayaka had long since stopped dancing and joined their friends to watch them too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you just hate it when you come up with a better character development than the one you created back when you started, and as a result you need to go back and alter the last works? Meaning I'm probably going to have to give Total Drama Academy & Living to the Fullest a re-write...and hopefully make them better.
> 
> Updates going back to Fridays until the end.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon and Sayaka are officially a couple, and the mysterious laptop finally reappears.

“ _Looks like you guys had a blast!_ ”

“And the best part this time, nobody got drunk.”

“ _You mean_ Shinjiro _didn’t get drunk._ ”

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”

“ _Well then, enjoy school!_ ”

“And you enjoy college.”

Tomoko hung up on Amy and went onto Chihiro’s exclusive network, which was full of nothing but pictures & videos from the dance. Leon and Sayaka’s dance, the band’s performance, a sneaky picture from Ibuki of her dancing with Kiyotaka, even Shinjiro re-enacting a routine from some Internet series.

At that moment, she overheard Leon and Sayaka behind her, deep in conversation. And honestly, seeing old Leon was almost as terrifying as when new Leon showed up. Turning to watch them, she saw the newly formed couple were holding hands. Sayaka was the first to notice Tomoko in front of them.

“Good morning Fukuhara-san!”

“Morning. I see the relationship’s going well.”

“Thanks again to you guys for helpin’ me out!”

“No problem.”

“So, you got your swimsuit for later?”

“Why? What’s happening later?”

“Giant end of year pool party. You know, if we were still in Japan, we’d have already graduated!”

_You have no idea._

Tomoko pushed the dark nagging thought aside. “Yeah, I know, I’ll be there.”

“Well, see you later!” Sayaka gave her a smile and wave as she and Leon headed for the entrance hall. Once they were close, Leon quickly turned back with a giant grin and thumb up.

Tomoko just rolled her eyes and smiled in return, when another one of her friends arrived.

“Good morning, Fukuhara-kun!”

“Ishimaru-kun. Morning. Aren’t you a little late?”

“Oh, I just needed to find something. Right, _and_ I received an important phone call.”

“Who from?”

“Shi-kun. The girl I was tutoring.”

“Oh, right, I remember her. What did she need to tell you?”

“She passed her exams!”

“That’s great! With a tutor like you, I knew she would.”

“Thank you, Fukuhara-kun! I wouldn’t have ever earned my Super High School Level talent if I couldn’t, would I?”

“True.” She quickly checked the time on her phone – two minutes before the morning bell. “Hm, are you okay? It’s not like you to be this late to class. No sleep after the dance?”

“I just needed to find something I’d kept away for a while. One moment.” He reached into his bag, which was nowhere near as full as it normally was, eventually finding a rainbow card with a rocket picture on the top.

_Hold on…_

“There was something I was meaning to ask you. I finally managed to get one of these and, well, because Yukizome-sensei already said that we have the morning to ourselves today, I thought you might want to accompany me on another date. As friends, naturally.”

For a moment, Tomoko was at a loss for words. Not only was it a date, but also the day after embarrassed dancing, during what would be classed as study time, and the very concept of being invited on a date with the socially awkward moral compass himself!

And encompassing all that were Kitty’s words to her at the beginning of the year.

_“If he does end up using a Date Ticket with you, I won’t let you deny it.”_

But another part of her didn’t care about the delusions of her friends, and wanted only to enjoy the last day of junior year.

“What did you have in mind?”

…

“About time you guys made it!”

Tomoko would have sworn that absolutely everybody was at the pool, even though not quite everyone was _in_ the water. Two lanes were split off to the side for the people who actually wanted to swim – all the rest were just doing whatever.

“What took so long? I told you about the party.”

“We had other things to do this morning.”

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Leon reached for Kiyotaka’s foot, “get in already!”

He yelled as he hit the water with a large splash, not having time to catch his breath when Mondo made a move to drown Leon, instead having to help Chihiro break the two apart.

“Wow, Maizono-san,” Junko remarked to her friend. “You sure do know how to pick them. AAHHHH!”

Another large splash of water in her face from the pitcher.

“Oh, do you want to die that badly?”

Tomoko sighed, turning to her group. “With all this, do I really want to join in?”

“Of course you do! It’s the last day! Or would you rather do classwork?”

“Hm. Fair enough.” Waiting for some space to clear in front of her, she jumped straight in. As she resurfaced, Kitty swam over to her.

“But seriously, where were you?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.” Tomoko swam off, with Kitty looking between her and Kiyotaka, who himself was still struggling to keep his former classmates apart.

Realisation hit her.

“Oh, my.”

Instead of forcing herself to listen to her and Ibuki’s ramblings for the umpteenth time in twenty-four hours, she instead went over to the other person she appeared to have spent any significant moments with in that time.

“Nanami-san, aren’t you coming in?”

She was sat in her swimsuit, playing a game again, with her feet in the pool water. While still engaging with people who came over to her, she was in the group of semi-awkward non-swimmers sat on or near the bleachers, with the likes of Toko, Ezekiel, Gwen etc.

“Maybe in a little bit.”

“So, um, did you manage to talk with any of your classmates at all?”

“She did.”

Coming up behind her was a small group consisting of Hajime, Peko, Kazuichi and Mahiru.

“Oh, you guys. I guess she told you.”

“Yes. And thank you for doing so.”

“Hey, I’ve been in a low mood recently, so if I can prevent something similar happening to someone else…”

“Low mood? Then how come you’re in the pool?” Mahiru punched Kazuichi hard in the shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Hmm…” Tomoko thought back to the beach party. “Are you two still wearing those matching speedos from first year?”

“What? Uh, no…”

“Are you sure…?” Smirking, she took a breath and submerged her head under the water, causing both of them to shield their crotch areas and swim away. As she resurfaced, she along with the other two girls laughed at the boys’ misfortune.

“By the way, Fukuhara,” Peko said, “Kirigiri asked to see you at the end of the day.”

…

As the final bell went on the final day of the year, the vast numbers quickly left their classrooms in groups, with Tomoko evading the rest of her group in order to beat the rush as best as possible. She couldn't help overhearing a conversation between two people on the way.

"What's up with you, Sierra?"

"That girl, Tsumugi, the one who made all those costumes for us? I haven't been able to get in contact with her for days."

"Nothing?"

"She typically updates her website every few days, and there's been nothing for two weeks."

Continuing past the pair, Tomoko kept on moving until she was in front of Class 1's door. Taking in a breath, she opened it, where the very person who was after her was sat at their desk, reading over a folder. Looking up, she immediately closed the folder and motioned for her to sit down.

"It's fine. Pekoyama-san said you needed me.”

“Right.” She closed her folder and stood up. “I heard from Togami-kun that you asked about the funding for the project.”

“Yeah. Are my parents really members of Future Foundation?”

“Yes. Your mother leads Branch 13, Asahina-san’s branch, and your father is the vice-leader. All the money after what was raised came directly from his own personal funds, but not too much so he was unable to run the business.”

“Wait, hold on. The restaurant’s still going?”

“Nobuharu-san actually had a strong role in re-implementing business back into the nation. And what Togami-kun almost definitely neglected to mention, is that he relied on his funds while he got the Togami Corporation back on track.”

“Woah…I had no idea my dad was that capable. Or that he even _had_ that much money. Is that all you needed me for?”

“Also to give you this.” She passed a notebook over to her. “It’s to use as a journal, to keep track of what comes back to you. And that’s all, unless you have more questions.”

Something occurred to her in that moment. Something which hadn’t been even remotely considered for months. “Well, not exactly. I just...there's something I've been meaning to confide." Tomoko gulped. "A few months ago, Shinjiro found something in our house. It had on it a bunch of information on everyone here, and something called "SAISEI". Could that have something to do with this Revival Project?"

“What was it?”

“A really high-tech laptop. The only other thing that made me want to bring it up was an email you sent to it.”

Kyoko didn’t reply, just putting her head in a hand, sighing.

"Is something wrong?"

"Just...could you do me a favour and find somebody?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left in this part, and it's going to take a very different turn to the previous ones.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth about Tess is revealed, and things take a darker turn in Japan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, I've reached the end! It'll be obvious from the ending that there'll be something of a tone change in the last instalment, which will be uploaded in a couple of weeks. With that said, enjoy the final chapter of Love Across The Universe!

"Sorry I'm late out. Had to get something sorted with one of the teachers."

Leaving the main building, she found her bandmates, Light Music Club members, and Kiyotaka's trio all waiting outside.

“What was it?”

“Had to hand something in.”

“Are you talking about the…you-know-what?” Shinjiro asked.

“Yep. So Kuwata-kun better not need any more info on Maizono-san.”

The group started walking towards the gate, with people already hyped for the summer break.

“With all the breaks that the teachers had from teaching this year,” Chihiro said, “I’m not as excited as usual for this one.”

“I know, right? It feels weird.”

“Clearly some of the others don’t feel the same. I think Geoff & Brody are already planning another party.”

“Well, guess Ibuki needs to find more ways to have fun by herself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tomoko-chan hasn’t been here for any of the summers since we all got here, and Ibuki’s ran out of fun things to do by herself!”

“I’m not going anywhere this summer.”

“Really?”

“I mean, there’s no Total Drama, and we haven’t booked on any vacations, so…”

“Well in that case, Ibuki’s group is going to have the best summer ever! I mean, it’s the last time we’ll have the chance to!”

“Oh, wow,” Kitty said before Ibuki could start rattling off her ideas. “When you put it like that…”

“What?”

“Next year’s going to be our last year here, right? Once the next summer rolls around, we’ll all finally be adults, in every sense of the word. Who knows if we’ll see each other again?”

An almost melancholic silence followed, everyone in thought. Not just from what Kitty pointed out, but also…everyone should be long gone from high school by this point. All the repeating probably meant that the entire student body (bar Courtney) had no idea what exactly they wanted to do afterwards.

And that was kind of terrifying.

The silence was broken in the end by Sayaka.

"Hey, have any of you seen Tess?"

...

She pushed the door open to the classroom, where Kyoko was sat waiting for her.

"Tomoko said you wanted to see me?"

She didn't say anything to Tess, only moving away from her desk and reading over a handful of sheets.

"Is there a problem? The others are going to be—"

"It's alright. You can drop the act now, Miku-san."

Tess (Miku?) went tense on the spot, pulling at her collar anxiously, under the stern eye of the former SHSL Detective. Eventually, she sighed, pulling her black and purple wig away and dropping it onto the floor. In its place underneath was a head of caramel coloured hair, the ends dip-dyed orange.

"Okay, fine. But how did you figure it out?"

"Some word from Fukuhara-san brought me onto the right track. Although on second thought it may have been slightly obvious when you referred to people using Japanese honorifics."

The girl laughed nervously. "Perceptive as always, I see."

"Does your boss know about this? And your other colleagues?"

"Yep. I told Asahina-san some time back, and Nobuharu-san was the one who wanted me to do this."

“Nobuharu-san?” Kyoko pondered this. "He has seemed to be quite fond of these kinds of operations recently.”

"But nobody other than him knows. Honest."

"As long as you're sure." Kyoko wrote a note and pushed it into Miku's hand. "Now you need to listen to me. The fact that they discovered the laptop is almost as bad as you being discovered, so you have to get the laptop, give it to me for safekeeping, and then return to Japan."

"B-but what about the real Tess? Won't it look suspicious if she just up and disappears again?"

“That is the least of your concerns.” The stern Kyoko everybody was familiar with had returned. “Yes, I told Fukuhara-san the truth about the Hope’s Peak students, but for the time being, we can’t afford any other Total Drama contestants to find out…and _most definitely_ not the Hope’s Peak victims. And that includes any links to the Future Foundation. Besides,” Kyoko bent down for her colleague’s wig, “there are more problems that need dealing with at home. I’m sure Nobuharu-san will explain them with you when you return.”

Miku sighed. “I understand. When do you want me gone?”

* * *

 

“You helping with dinner or not? I think our now eleven-strong group are coming without an invite.”

“In a few minutes.” Ensuring the door to her room was closed, Tomoko went to her desk and pulled out a blank notebook, turning to and removing a central page.

She spent about five minutes with her pen hovering over the paper, trying to think of what exactly to say. She hadn’t seen either parent in years, and a lot had happened since the last time, even thought most of it was stuff she couldn’t remember.

Maybe if they were Future Foundation too, they’d know something, she thought. So, with the events in her memory at the forefront of her mind, she finally started:

_Mom and Dad,_

_I can’t believe it’s been seven years since I’ve last seen either of you. I hope everything is going well for you both at Future Foundation. Yes, I’ve found out about what’s been happening over there in previous years - it didn’t make as much news in the West as you’d expect._

_I myself have had a brilliant three years at the Neo Hope’s Peak Academy, and have made a lot of new friends: Ibuki Mioda, Kiyotaka Ishimaru, Leon Kuwata, as well as a couple from the Total Drama series (the show I worked for as an intern) whose names you wouldn’t recognise. I’m unsure if you know this, but the experience was made into a TV reality show during our first year, and I apparently had a role in creating it...I have more to say about that later._

_I have spent the last three years living with Shinjiro, who is also well, along with two other people called Ian and Tess Costello. One is a vlogger who appears to have a lot of additional work, since she doesn’t appear to stick around long. The other is a songwriter - I oddly enough wouldn’t be able to tell you any of his songs, but he’s an awfully nice guy who you’d both love. The two boys and I have formed a band with the aforementioned Kuwata-kun, and although we don’t play my kind of music, it has still led to some entertaining events._

“And Ibuki has everything already planned out! We’re gonna have more unofficial Light Music Club meetings, go skateboarding, binge movies, go to each other’s houses for food…”

“Woah, woah, slow down! We have ten odd weeks to do all this!”

“Mmm! This is great!”

“Spectacular as always, Fukuhara-kun!”

“Hey! I helped!”

“For the first fifteen minutes. You only gave up when Tomoko came down.”

“Off topic, you know what’s just occurred to me?”

“About what?”

“You realise once Heather and Alejandro get married, we’re gonna have to call her _Mrs. Dead Donkeys_?”

“Pff-- God, I totally forgot about that!”

“Tess? Is everything okay?”

“Y-yeah…fantastic.”

…

_Unfortunately, not everything has worked out so perfectly. In my first year, I lost Satoko in an accident, which was a heavy blow for me to deal with at the time, but my new friends helped me get over it. As it also turns out, I have been suffering from amnesia. Kirigiri-san has informed me of the killing games that preceded the students’ arrival in Canada, the very existence of the Tragedy & Future Foundation, and the fact I commissioned the whole idea. Right down to the revival of them. I’m unsure whether or not you and Branch 13 have any knowledge of this so-called “Revival Project”, but if you do, any answers would be greatly appreciated._

_Anyway, I understand if you’re too busy to find the time to read this right now, but I hope we are able to continue to converse, like a normal family (preferably through Kirigiri-san or another Foundation member). Best of luck with everything, and I hope you can understand no word from Shinjiro. Either way, I shall pass on your regards to him._

_Your daughter, Tomoko_

“Nobuharu-san?”

The vice-leader of Branch 13 set the letter down and looked up at the blonde intern in the door.

“Emiko-san asked me to pass on a message. The helicopter you’re both expecting is in the air, and it’s on its way to the Sapporo base.”

“Brilliant. Thank you.” He pocketed his daughter’s letter and stood to leave. “Tell them to prepare a helicopter.”

“Of course.” While Nobuharu made his way to the rooftop, the intern reached for her phone and power-walked towards the next office along, whilst other interns did the same thing, carrying files from one branch to another.

Despite all the rooms that were entered and left, the door to only one on the whole floor was untouched. Inside this room were two people, a young man and young woman. The male read over an important document, while the female messed with the gloves on her hands. They were of roughly the same age, and there was an atmosphere of tension in the room, not helped by the uncomfortable silence between the two, until the woman spoke up.

“What’s the document for? Or can’t I know?”

“After the ten-minute one in the old warehouse, there’s been _another_ killing game. And this time it _did_ use former Hope’s Peak students. They were evacuated after the new wave of attacks, to the refuge town Branch 13 commissioned. I found it discarded on a desk.”

“How many survivors?”

“Only three. No clue where they are now.”

The woman sighed. “Number five. Why do these killing games keep happening? And how much longer until they get overseas?”

“Here comes your answer.” He pointed to the door as it creaked open, a young woman entering. She was in something reminiscent of a Future Foundation uniform, but make no mistake, she was not an actual member.

The first woman completely dropped her anxious behaviour over the killings and spoke to the new arrival. “Well, how’s it going?”

“For a group who’re supposed to eradicate all despair from the world, it’s kind of pathetic how they haven’t spotted one was lurking under their nose the entire time.” This person set a coffee mug onto the table in the room.

“Yes, you’ve been here for a long time, but that doesn’t warrant membership.”

“I’m referring to Saki.”

Despite how real the name is, Saki wasn’t this person’s real name, merely a codename. And not one picked up through the Future Foundation either. The first female went by the name of Shion among her group, while the second followed the more sinister moniker of Reaper. The male was the only one of the three without a codename, solely put down to his lack of initiative among them.

“By the way, how is it you both managed to make it in undetected?”

Shion pointed towards the male, who still hadn’t looked up at Reaper. “He knows his way through this building like the back of his hand.”

“I do my research.”

Annoyed by his dull response, Reaper snatched the paper out of his hand, skimming through it twice. “Well this won’t help us.” She screwed the paper into a ball and stuffed it into her skirt pocket, taking out her phone in its place and showing her two allies a long message. “Anyways, Saki says that she’s managed to get the biggest threats off our backs for now. She’s played her part in this infiltration, and now it’s time we play ours.” A few more taps on the phone later, and the little light in the small room was extinguished. In seconds, the three heard a chorus of screams, thuds, and subtle splattering. Following a couple seconds of silence, the door was opened by a man far older than the three.

“All done. Now we better blow before more of them show up. As…tempting as it is to keep going.” The older man pulled a pink bomb out of his coat and tossed it into the middle of the hall, a large white flash flooding everything. “Right, let’s move.”

The younger male gave each group member a flashlight before they booked it out of the room. Both males and Reaper started running for a staircase at the end, Reaper and the older one taking the time to chide each other.

“For a girl named The Reaper, you sure held back in the bloodbath.”

“Only because you took the lead before any of us could get a leg in.”

At that moment, the blonde intern rounded the corner, happening across the vast numbers of deceased members. Before she could make a call to another person, however, Reaper unveiled a knife and dashed towards the young woman. One swift stab to the head was all it took to subdue the threat.

“Now what was that you were saying, hm?”

“Save the showboating for later. Do you want to waste time killing more people?”

“As… _tempting_ as it sounds…” Reaper was shoved by the man before she could continue. However, if it wasn’t the killings that would get them caught, then it sure would be the other problem.

Shion was still incredibly far behind, too distracted by the horror of at least ten Future Foundation members lying dead on the floor, the blood stains lining the walls…

“Shion, are you coming or not?”

“Hm? Oh, r-right.” She ran towards them, the two men reaching the staircase alongside her, and Reaper hanging back to cover them.

“Sorry Shion,” the older man sarcastically said. “I forgot you don’t like killing people.”

“Oh shut up and keep running.”

Before too long, the three made it to the top of the stairs. The older man slammed his left side into the door at the top, releasing a stream of cold air. They walked away from the doorway on the off chance more survivors would be following closely behind them. Already waiting for them was another young woman, roughly the same age as the first two. She wore a black/white hoodie with the hood up, facing away from the three.

“About time you made it. I was worrying I’d have to start searching for recruits again.”

“Would we let you down…Kurokami?”

Said Kurokami finally turned to face them, a face just as dull and monotonous as her outfit. “Yes. You could.” She looked among them. “Where is she?”

“Here I am~!”

The door swung open again, and Reaper stood behind it. In one hand was her knife, far bloodier than before; the other held the hair of the corpse of the blonde intern. Not for long though, as she tossed the body in front of Kurokami.

“Thought you may want proof we did our job properly.”

“Properly, you say? Staying behind to put more breadcrumbs on our trail?”

“Oh come _on_ , you should have seen the mess!”

The older man had a grin just as large as Reaper’s, while Shion shifted uncomfortably. The young man was as impassive as usual.

“The so-called “mess” the three of you…or rather _you two_ , I assume, left behind, will be nothing compared to what’s to come.”

She turned her back to them once more, walking to the edge of the roof and holding a hand up. “Do you hear that?”

The five went quiet, listening intently for whatever Kurokami was referring to. Below them, the silence of the halls was replaced with blaring sirens.

“That’s what we’re after. Panic. Not only from the unsuspecting ones down there, but those in here too. The ones who are supposed to _prevent_ the panic. Consider that mess of yours the precursor for what’s to come. Starting today, our efforts will finally be worth something – the killing games, the renewed attacks against Hope’s Peak…

“The reign of despair is about to start anew, and this time, nobody will be safe.

“And that means you too, Tomoko Fukuhara.”

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is this mysterious group? Where is the real Tess? How long until the other students find out? What sort of memories are the Fukuhara twins missing? Will Chris come up with any last-minute ways to stir up drama? Is LeoSaya going to last? Will Ibuki and Kitty ever give up on Ishihara/Fukumaru/whatever you feel like calling it? Is the focus going to move away from the same eleven characters for once?  
> Find out soon, in the final instalment of Total Drama vs Danganronpa: _Despair's Final Elimination._


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